


In Our Blood

by LouisianaSkiess (TenWoolf)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, conveniently absent parents/guardians, do i need to warn people about swearing?, mentions of under 18 drinking and sex, slow-burn relationships but fast friendships, the pack having normal teenage conversations and getting to relax
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-19 06:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 49,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5956501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenWoolf/pseuds/LouisianaSkiess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>~~Crazy Job Schedule Induced Hiatus~~</p><p> </p><p>Lydia Martin and Laken Smith are cousins, at least that's what they tell everyone. That their moms are sisters (true) and that they grew up as close as sisters (also true). But after a summer vacation gets extended they find out just how close they actually are and Laken finds out exactly how wild things in Beacon Hills can get.<br/>Starts between seasons 2 and 3. Eventual Stiles/OC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We Are Just At The Beginning, Just at the Beginning

_I wanna have the same last dream again,_  
_The one where I wake up and I'm alive._  
_Just as the four walls close me within,_  
_My eyes are opened up with pure sunlight._  
_I'm the first to know,_  
_My dearest friends,_  
_Even if your hope has burned with time,_  
_Anything that's dead shall be re-grown,_  
_And your vicious pain, your warning sign,_  
_You will be fine._

 _Hello, here I am,_  
_And here we go, life's waiting to begin._

~Angels and Airwaves, "[The Adventure](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMl8cQjBfqk)"

* * *

 

Laken Smith sat on the floor of her bedroom, sorting winter clothes into boxes.

            “Knock Knock.”

            Laken looked up at the door, folding a sweater absentmindedly, to where her mother stood.

            “So I just got off the phone with Aunt Natalie. How would you like to go spend the summer out in California with the Martin’s? You haven’t seen Lydia in years.”

            “I saw Lydia 3 years ago, mom.” Laken rolled her eyes.

            “This year’s been rough, it’ll be nice for you to get away from it all. Plus how many kids get to spend a whole summer in California? Most of your friends are probably just going to Huston or Orlando.” Mom teased.

            “What about the move?” Laken tried again, gesturing to the sea of empty boxes that she was in the process of filling.

            “Well, you wouldn’t be leaving till the end of the week, so you’d have plenty of time to pack it all up.”

            “But what if I forget to pack something? What if there’s something under my bed or behind the night stand?”

            “Then I’ll pack if up and make sure it makes it to Grandma’s house.” Mom said gently.  “So what do you say?”

            “Okay.” Laken sighed, nodding. “I’ll go.”

            “I’ll go let Aunt Natalie know.” Mom smiled, Laken picked up something sad behind her eyes though, she wrote it off as being sad for the move and still missing dad. After his death a little over a year ago, she hadn’t quite been the same. Especially after they had to DNA test both her and his mom (her Grandma) to ID the body. Now they were moving into the guest house, Laken was positive it used to be a servant’s house from the ‘20s, to take care of her Grandma. She was getting older and was scheduled to have hip surgery over the summer which would require someone be living close buy at all times in case she fell. Since she no longer had her son around, her daughter-in-law and granddaughter were the next best thing.

            Laken stuffed a her jeans into the box with her sweaters and other winter accessories and taped the box shut. She stood in the middle of the room, trying to remember where her suitcases where.

            “Here you go, sweetie.” Lake spun on the spot to see her mom holding her blue suitcase and her old purple backpack.  “Everything’s all set with Aunt Nat and Lydia’s excited to see you!”

            “Thanks, mom.” Lake took the bags and set them on her bed. “hopefully I’ll be all packed up and ready to go by the weekend.”

            “Honey, you worry too much. Anything that you haven’t packed by then, I will make sure it’s packed and it makes the move.” Mom said soothingly. She stayed silent for a moment, just watching Laken stand there with her suitcase, smiled softly and left the room.

            Summer break started a few days later, school and packing took up most of her free time but she managed to have everything squared away by the time break officially started.

            “Okay honey.” Laken’s mom stood in front of her, holding out a large envelope. “Give this to Aunt Natalie when you see her. It’s just some papers that I needed to send over to her and a thank you letter for having you for the summer. Now you have everything? Money? Phone?”

            Laken tucked the envelope into my backpack. “I got it all, mom.”

            “Okay, then.  Be good, Lake. Text me when you land. Aunt Natalie arranged for a cab to pick you up and drop you off at her house, it’s been paid for so don’t worry about that okay.”

            “Gotcha.” She nodded, giving her mom a thumbs up.

            The plane ride was boring, she was too nervous about flying to focus on much else. Even if there was some kid kicking her seat, repeatedly.

            At the airport, Laken was just glad to no longer be on that airplane. She spotted a man holding up a sign with her name and get into the cab, just as her mother had said to.

~

Laken stood in front of the Martin’s house, the large white picturesque home looked the same as always.

“Laken! Honey!” Natalie Martin came out of her house with her arms open. “Oh look at you, you’ve gotten so tall.”

“I’m 5’4”.” Laken frowned, she didn’t consider herself tall at all.

“That’s an inch taller than Lydia!” Natalie smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind Laken’s ear. She took the handle of Laken’s suitcase from the driver. “Lydia’s at school. They don’t get out for another day or two, I know you’ve been out for about a week now right? She’s very excited to see you.”

Natalie ushered her niece up the front steps and into the house.

“She’s been talking non-stop about going shopping with you, and tanning, and all that stuff. Maybe a few summer parties, she really wants to introduce you to her friends. You’ll get to meet Allison at the going away party hopefully. Jackson’s moving to London. Very abrupt but his father got an amazing opportunity.” Natalie prattled on, moving through the house with Laken’s suitcase as she followed behind with the other.

Laken hardly registered the names from Lydia’s emails she knew Jackson was Lydia’s boyfriend, or maybe ex-boyfriend, and Allison was new this year but had amazing taste in clothes.

“How’s your mother?”

“Mom’s good. She’s moving in with Grandma Betty this summer.”

“Yes, Penny told me about that. But, how is she handling your father’s death. Is she still,” Natalie dropped her voice to a whisper, “depressed?”

Laken scrunched up her face at her aunt’s tone, “she’s handling it as well as can be expected.” Then added, “we all are.”

“Well, your uncle and I are very sorry we couldn’t make the funeral.”

“Uncle Mike was there.” Laken frowned.

Natalie froze at the top step. She turned to Laken with a tight smile. “Right, no I forgot. Lydia and I couldn’t make it, you know with school and her PSATs, very busy.”

“Mom and I understood.” Something in the pit of her stomach told Laken to tread carefully.

“Yes, well.” Natalie relaxed, “this will be your room.” She pushed open a door, they were over the pool house. “Lydia’s right down the hall. And I’m across the house, but you remember that I’m sure, not much has changed since the last time you were here.” Natalie chirped.

“Yeah I think I can manage.”

“Good. I’ll leave you to freshen up, maybe a shower? And get unpacked.” She looked at her watch. “Lydia should be home in an hour.” With that her Aunt hurried out the door, closing it behind her.

Laken blinked hard at the door, Natalie’s thinly veiled criticism left her feeling slightly uncomfortable. She remembered her mom saying that Aunt Natalie liked things a certain way, the word she used was ‘particular’ which really just meant that she wanted things to look perfect. Laken felt her hair and sniffed at the ends, it didn’t feel greasy or smell. Aunt Natalie’s criticisms didn’t start until Lydia’s thirteen birthday, naturally Laken started getting them too, she was twelve.  It was part of the reason she hadn’t been to see Lydia in 3 years. They were always small things, like that pink wasn’t her color or that her swim suit looked a little small. It used to feel like the comments came from a place of love, now they felt more like a notification of imperfections.

She turned on the spot and dug out fresh clothes from her bag. She was a guest in their house so she might as well shower off the feeling of the airplane on her skin.


	2. We Are Obviously Winning, Obviously Winning

_For goodness sake let us be young_   
_Because time gets harder to outrun_   
_And I'm nobody, I'm not done_   
_With a cool cool breeze and dirty knees_   
_I rest on childhood memories_

~The Vaccines, "[Wetsuit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4J3sVMmN0)"

* * *

 

“Odette!” Lydia squealed out when she spotted Laken and hurried over to hug her tightly.

“Ariel!” Laken retorted, teasingly, in a dramatic tone.

The two were always told how similar they looked, the had the same eye shape, similar lips, dimples that fell in the same place, similar complexions, heights, and build, even similar fashion tastes; but the two saw themselves as near opposites. Lydia’s hair fell into strawberry blonde, with white blonde tones under the vibrant peachy red; Laken’s hair was more orange than red, and her hair was called ‘dishwater blonde.’ Where Lydia’s hair was red, hers was dirty blonde and where her hair was orange, Lydia’s was blonde. Laken’s body was curvier, her hips wider and shoulders broader than Lydia’s petite frame. Lydia’s eyes were more green, Laken’s more blue. According to Lydia, she had the better taste in fashion too, Laken could rock jeans better than Lydia, but Lydia made skirts look good for everything. Laken fell under hipster to Lydia’s fashionista. Admittedly the only flaw Lydia ever had was a bad case of backne that she admitted to when they were talking over instant messenger about their first days of 7th grade (and subsequently discussed Laken’s grade skipping over 6th.) After complaining back and forth about teachers, kids in their classes, and Laken’s sunburnt skin, Lydia admitted to having a horribly case of backne that her mom took her to a dermatologist to get sorted out.

“I’m so excited!” Lydia grinned, bouncing in her 4 inch heels.

“Woah. Don’t break a heel.” Laken laughed, steadying the wobbly Lydia.

“Oh you’re right. These are Prada.” Lydia grinned. “Come on, we need to talk!”

Lydia dragged Laken up the stairs and into her room. Once she closed the door behind then, Lydia’s shoulders relaxed.

“Thank god you’re here.” Lydia sighed. “I’ve got to set up for the party tonight. Jackson’s leaving for London tomorrow and Allison’s going to France on Wednesday.”

“When do you guys get out of school?”

“Well today’s Friday? Today was the last official day but Monday we go to return books and do final things, Tuesday we’re supposed to get report cards.”

“So you’re getting everyone drunk on a Friday.”

“Yeah, weekend to recupe’. Plus I always throw the first big party of the summer.” Lydia grinned, she shuffled through her closet and tossed Laken a royal blue dress with a big daisy pattern. “This would be perfect for you, it’s a little big on me. You’re wearing it tonight.”

Laken examined the dress, the scoop neck would come way too low on her and it looked a like it would be tight in the chest. “I don’t know Lyds.”

“Put it on!” Lydia urged, pulling on Laken’s arm to get her up off the bed and into the bathroom. Lydia wagged another dress at Laken that was even smaller, “I’m wearing this. Oh, can I do your hair and make up, too? Allison should be here soon, she can help.”

The dress was low cut, the scoop would have fallen normally on Lydia but squeezed Laken’s chest and showed off a lot of cleavage including several freckles that she would rather hide.  Other than that it fit fine.

“I don’t know Lydia.” Laken frowned at the mirror.

“Let me see!”

Laken slowly opened the door.

Lydia grinned. “You look fine. What are you worrying about?”

“Uh, isn’t your mom going to say something about how low this is?”

“She won’t be here.” Lydia flipped her hair over her shoulder and straightened out her sparkly dress.

“She won’t?”

“She’s taking Prada to a doggie and me spa for the weekend.” Lydia smoothed out her eyeliner and lipstick. “Come sit so I can do your hair.”

“Girls?” Natalie called from the hallway, giving the door a quick tap before pushing it open. Laken had just enough time to grab a pillow to hug to her chest. “You two look nice. I’m off for the weekend, so you two have fun. But not too much fun, keep it classy.”

Lydia pursed her lips, “don’t we always?”

“Of course. Have fun! I’ll see you two Monday afternoon. And Lydia, don’t be late for school.”

Lydia waved her hand, but her mom left it at that and closed the door. Her eyes trained to her phone for a second, then she put it face down on her vanity.

“Allison will be here in a few minutes, okay now come here. I’m doing your hair and then your make up.” Lydia ushered Laken into the seat in front of her vanity and hummed as she ran her fingers through Laken’s hair. “I’m thinking beach waves, loose curls. Little braids at the crown. Very bohemian.”

Laken nodded in agreement, to which Lydia grinned and grabbed her curling iron and got to work.

“Ta-da!” Lydia grinned, holding up a mirror so Laken could see the back of her head.

“I like it. Wow. Okay. Let’s hope this holds.”

Lydia scoffed, “oh it’ll hold. My good name is at stake.”

“If you say so.”

“Besides if it falls out a little, it’ll still look fine. Okay glasses off. I love them by the way. They suit your face.” Lydia took the glasses from Laken’s hands and set them on the top of her chest of drawers, out of the way.

“I can’t see shit, Lyd. So don’t do anything weird.”

Lydia scoffed, “like I’d do anything weird.” She tilted Laken’s chin and studied her face. “No eyeshadow, right? Can I do a nude base, please? Then maybe a simple cat eye and a overlay in white. Coral lips. What do you think?”

Laken laughed, “I think I trust you enough to do your thing. Just don’t go too heavy.”

Lydia started putting on foundation, but stopped mid-reach for the powder when her phone buzzed.

“Allison’s here. I can’t wait for you to meet her.”

“Should I…” Laken waved the powder at her.

“No!” Lydia pointed at her and hurried down the stairs.

Laken squinted at the mirror trying to see herself better. The last time she was at Lydia’s she spent the summer squinting at things far away, when they went back home they found out that she needed glasses after the school did a vision test on the whole grade.

“Lake, meet Allison, Alli this is my cousin, Laken.”

Laken turned to the blurry shape next to the blurry Lydia. “Hi. I can’t really see you right now, Lydia took my glasses hostage.”

“No problem.” Allison laughed.

“You sound nice?” Laken shrugged.

“Allison go put on the dress I laid out for you, I’m going to finish Lake’s make up.”

Allison nodded and disappeared into Lydia’s bathroom. Lydia brushed the finishing powder carefully over Laken’s face, did a careful contour with eyeshadow, and moved on to eyeliner.

“Okay be still.” Lydia cautioned, sitting on the edge of her vanity and hovering close to Laken’s face.

“Are Scott and Stiles coming to help set up?” Allison called from the bathroom.

“I think so.” Lydia said, eyes crossed in focus.

“Who's Scott and Stiles?”

“I told you about them.” Lydia said, running her thumb along the corner of Laken’s eye.

“Allison.” Laken called. “Who are they?”

Allison laughed as she opened the door. “Short version. Scott’s my ex-boyfriend, and Stiles is his best friend. Stiles is super into Lydia.”

“Ohh.” It clicked in the back of Laken’s memory, “isn’t that the kid that used to follow us around at the park?”

“I think so.” Lydia pursed her lips finishing off the second wing. “I never really paid attention to him before.”

“Lydia doesn’t pay attention to much if it isn’t popular and hot.” Allison teased.

“Open.” Lydia instructed Laken, holding a tube of lipstick. She shrugged “He’s not my type.”

“We know, Lydia.” Allison giggled.

“Blot.” Lydia instructed, handing Laken a tissue. Laken rolled her eyes, already knowing what to do without Lydia’s step-by-step.

“I know Lydia.” Laken sighed, putting the tissue between her lips and tossing it in the trash. “So what are they like then?”

Lydia handed Laken her glasses and motioned for Allison to take the seat at the vanity.

“Scott and Stiles?”  Allison shrugged, “they’re… different.”

Laken studied herself in the mirror and nodded, “I like it, thanks Lyd.”

“You’re welcome.” Lydia grinned as she ran her fingers through Allison’s hair deciding what to do with it.

“Yeah, Scott and Stiles, what do they look like, like if I were to run into them, what do I look out for?” Laken sat on the floor against the wall and getting a good look at Allison. She had seen bright and smiling pictures of Lydia and Allison plastered all over her Facebook feed, but in person Allison seemed a little more reserved.

Allison tilted her head in consideration. “Well Scott’s got floppy dark hair, kinda wavy, dark brown eyes, really tan. His jaw is kind of uneven. He’s really kind and sweet. Stiles is a little more suspicious. He’s sarcastic and nerdy. Buzzcut hair, he has brown eyes too but they’re lighter, like an amber? He has a lot of freckles.” Allison laughed, “I haven’t really looked at him too hard.”

Laken laughed, “so you’re not staring longingly at your ex-boyfriend’s best friend then?”

“No.” Allison giggled.

“He’s about 5’10”,” Lydia added. “So about six inches taller than you.”

“Why is everyone here so tall?”

“Maybe you’re just short.” Allison winked. “Lydia likes to compensate with heels.”

“Heels are painful.” Laken grinned at Lydia, knowing she disagreed.

“Pain is beauty, people.”

“Pretty doesn’t have to hurt.” Laken teased her, wagging her finger. “Flats and low wedges work just as well.”

Lydia sighed dramatically, “if you must.”

“I must.” Laken grinned making Allison laugh. “Do you want me to do anything while you’re doing Allison’s make up?”

Lydia considered for a moment and nodded, “yeah there’s a box of streamers in the hall, can you start putting them up? Anywhere that looks nice. You’ve got a good eye.” 

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKMYLs5CHG0 this is the song In Our Blood by Youngblood Hawke that the titles will follow (also it's a fitting theme for the whole story)


	3. It's In Our Blood

_The Sun swayed and set slow_   
_Made waves with some friends I know_   
_Got lost in the ebb and flow_   
_Of the drifting tide_   
_And I_   
_I didn't ever want to come down_   
_From that West Coast rush and summer high_   
_And easy, peaceful sense of time_   
_(I felt so alive)_   
_Now I'm alone when I'm back home_   
_It's cold and old_   
_But in my mind_   
_I, I am miles and miles away_

~The Maine, "[Miles Away](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G1Epvwpwpw)" 

* * *

 

Laken stood on her tip toes she jumped a little to tap the streamers to the wall. She groaned in frustration and spoke at the footsteps behind her, “Allison, tell Lydia that this dress is way too lowcut to be doing this in.”

“Uh, I’m not Allison?”

She spun around to find, not Allison. A boy, judging by the descriptions from earlier this was Stiles. He didn’t have the floppy dark hair or the tan skin to be Scott.

“I’m Stiles.”

Laken’s eyes widened, she recognized him. “Oh, you are that kid.”

“I’m what?” Stiles looked at her in confusion.

“You used to follow me and Lydia around the park when we were little.”

A look washed of recognition over Stiles’ face, “you’re Lydia’s cousin. Wow, look at you. Last time I saw you, you were, what seven?”

“Probably more like six.” Laken shrugged, Lydia had been seven. The next year was when she lost most of her interest in playing on the merry-go-round and the two became fixated on Lydia’s mini-chemistry set and making things explode. They left several scorch marks on the floors and nearly caught a curtain on fire with a Bunsen burner. “When I was seven, Lydia and I were into her Chemistry set. Aunt Natalie had to redo the floors in the kitchen that summer.”

Stiles’ eyebrows raised. “Who let two seven year olds have a chemistry set?”

“Who let a seven and eight year old have a chemistry set.” Laken corrected. “The same person who let a nine and ten year old play with acrylic paints in an entirely white room.”

“Which was?”

“My dad.” Laken grinned. The smile slowly slipped off her face when she remembered.

“Your dad sounds like a cool guy.” Stiles moved to tape up a piece of streamer that had come unstuck.

“He was.” Laken nodded, hiding her face in the box of streamers, blinking hard to stop herself from messing up Lydia’s hard work.

“Oh.” Stiles breathed. Laken looked up to see him nodding rapidly like it was a nervous tick, “I know what that’s like. I, um, my mom.”

“It sucks.” Laken nodded, untangling a line of streamer.

“Yeah it does.”

Heels clicked down the stairs. “Lake! I want you to meet… oh, hey Stiles.” Allison came bounding down the stairs with a floppy haired boy in tow. Scott. Lydia was a few steps behind.

“Hey.” Stiles waved at her and pushed another bit of streamer to the wall. He held his hand out for the one in Laken’s hand. She fed it to him.

“Hi, I’m Scott.” The floppy haired boy waved. “Laken, right?”

“That’s me.”

Lydia clapped her hands from the middle of the stairs, “okay introductions over for now, Scott can you get the table set up in the backyard. Allison, you and I are going to get the food. Then I’m going to hang up these.” Lydia held up two poster boards, one said ‘Bon Voyage, Allison!’ in swirly calligraphy, the second said ‘We’ll Miss You, Jackson!’ in puffy blue and red lettering. “Lake, you and Stiles can finish with the streamers.” Lydia finished her delegations and clapped her hands again, “Chop, chop.”

            ~~

“Danny! Lake this is Danny, he’s Jackson’s best friend. Danny meet my cousin, Laken.”

“Hi.” Laken grinned at Danny.

Lydia leaned in and whispered, “he’s gay.”

“Nice to know.” Laken patted Lydia’s shoulder.

“Oh there’s Dan. C’mon, I’ll introduce you, he’s a starter for the lacrosse team.” Lydia pulled Laken away from Danny, introducing Dan the same way she did Danny moments before. She was slowly working her way through the lacrosse line up.

At some point Lydia shoved a blue cup in her hand and insisted she drink it, Laken did so out of politeness then switched to bottles of water when Lydia was out of sight. She didn’t stop introducing Laken to people till close to midnight, when Laken slunk off to her room exhausted.

~~

When Laken woke up the house was still and silent and it was still dark out. She squinted into the darkness hoping to make out the time on the clock but couldn’t, so she reached for her phone and prepared herself for the inevitable burn of looking into the sun.  2:45 a.m., she read the time through her lashes, trying to fight the burning feeling. It astonished her that one of Lydia’s infamous parties had ended before 4 a.m., maybe everyone had gone off to some other party.

She pushed her glasses up her nose and straightened out the dress she’d fallen asleep in, determined to wash off the make up on her face and change into something more comfortable. When she turned on the light in her bathroom, she saw a figure sleeping on her floor. A balled up plaid shirt as a pillow, Stiles was dead asleep, ass in the air and snoring lightly.  Laken racked her brain for a reason he’d have wondered in here to sleep while she lathered up her face, scrubbing away the eyeliner and mascara that spread across her cheekbones.  Instead of waking him up, she quietly changed into a tank top and a pair of spandex shorts and left the room.

It wasn’t exactly unusual for Laken to wake up in the middle of the night and bake, even less unusual when there were drunk people around. Drunk friends loved her cookies, and best of all they never actually cared if they looked like lumps of dough or were perfectly round like store bought. They were a hit with the hung-over crowd too. So, Laken made her way over sleeping bodies strewn about the front rooms to the kitchen, tying her hair up into a bun along the way. She just hoped Lydia, wherever she had crashed, wasn’t too set on some ‘day two hair’ idea for her.

She tried to be quiet as she moved around the kitchen searching for flour (fridge), brown and white sugar (pantry), vanilla extract (pantry), baking soda, (again, pantry), chocolate chips (she hit the jackpot and found  peanut butter chips, mini-m&ms, AND some mix bags of white, dark, and milk chocolate chips in the crisper drawer under shredded cheeses), and a few other ingredients. Laken winced as the cookie sheets clanged together and froze to see if she woke up a light sleeper. The house stayed silent as she followed the recipe in her head, pouring things into a large bright pink mixing bowl that Lydia had picked out when she went through a baking phase. Lydia quickly found out she sucked at baking, she was better at helping make sure measurements were precise.

The first batch of trays were almost in the oven when a soft pat of footsteps made Laken pause and look wide-eyed at the kitchen archway.  A sleepy, shirtless Scott walked into the kitchen rubbing his eyes.

“Hi, Scott.” Laken said, alerting him of her presence.

“Oh sh-,” Scott jumped. “Sorry, I saw the light on, I was coming to turn it off. I didn’t know someone was in here.”

Laken set three trays into the oven and set the timer. She turned back to Scott. “No I’m the one who should apologize, I’m the weird one making cookies at…” she consulted the over clock, “3:26 a.m. I don’t even have an excuse really, it’s not like jet lag or anything.”

Scott sat on a barstool, yawning, but looking more awake.

“So what’s your story?” Laken started dropping teaspoons of cookie dough onto another set of trays, bright pink to match the bowl.

“Story?”

“Yeah, what’s there to know about Scott?”

“Not much.” Scott shrugged.

“Last name? Hobbies?”

Scott scratched the back of his head. “McCall. I play lacrosse and woke part time at a vet clinic. Not much else.”

“That’s a very boring story.” Laken smirked, not unkindly, at Scott. “People never seem to tell the true stories, because they think people won’t find them interesting or because they’re scared to tell too much about themselves. I’m sure there’s more to you than that.”

Scott shrugged.  He was saved from trying to come up with some sort of twisted version of the truth about his life by Lydia and Allison.

“I thought I smelled baked goods.” Lydia grinned. “This is the one thing I missed about you.”

“Glad to know you’ve got your priorities right, drunkie.”

She gasped in fake offense. “I do not get drunk.”

“The number of cookies you end up eating will speak for themselves.” Laken japed.

Lydia perched on the counter-top between the bowl of cookie dough and the sink and scooped up some dough on her finger. “Nightmares?” She asked quietly with a mouthful.

“Not really. Not anymore.” Laken shook her head, “if they are I sure don’t remember them.”

“So you don’t wake up screaming anymore?”

“I never woke up screaming.” The two had forgotten that Scott and Allison sat a few feet away. “It was more like I couldn’t breathe. You know my mom thought it was sleep apnea. Or allergies.” Laken shook her head, taking out the three trays in the oven and replacing them with the trays of unbaked cookies. “Just bad dreams about weird things. Like that one time I dreamed about being locked in school, I was being chased by something giant. I don’t remember. It's just the brain processing everything that's happened anyway.”

Scott and Allison pretended like they weren’t paying attention to the conversation before them, and faked being startled by the plate of fresh cookies being set in front of them.

“Jackson left?”

“Yep.” Lydia nodded, taking three cookies and hopping up on the counter-top near the plate.

“Where’s Stiles?” Scott set down the cookie he’d bit into.

Laken’s head snapped to look at him, “oh! I think he’s asleep on the floor in my room.”

“Your room?”

“Yeah I don’t know why either.” Laken shrugged.

“I’ll go get him.” Scott nodded, shoving the rest of the cookie into his mouth as he left the kitchen.


	4. You're sitting outside

_Wild babe, I just want to be your prey_   
_Wild babe, i just want to be_   
_Let It eat me up tonight, yeah_   
_Let it eat me up tonight_

~CRUSIR, "[Wild Babe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aehwKUyLAbI)"

* * *

 

Lydia shoved half her load of books into Laken’s arms.

“We have to make a stop by my locker for the rest.”

“Gee, Lydia, how many books do you have?” Laken asked rhetorically, “so how’s today going to work? Do I need a visitor’s pass?”

Lydia raised her eyebrow at her cousin. “No? Just follow me. You’ll be fine. Today’s blocked off by last name, A-F, H-L, M-S, T-Z. We go turn the books into the library, they sort them by subject and class and we’re off.”

“Your school is so weird.” Laken shook her head, struggling to hold Lydia’s heavy books with her noodle arms.

“How does your school do it then?”

“Last week of school we go by the class that we’re in and turn books in. As a class, so the books are together.”

Lydia stopping mid-stride, she wrinkled her nose at Laken, “no _that’s_ weird.”

Together they walked into the school. The cool air chilling their skin.  Goosebumps broke along Laken’s arms and legs, making her regret the decision to wear a tank top and shorts.

“Where’s your locker? Siberia?”

“Hush.” Lydia chided, “it’s right down the hall.”

A man in a suit walking down the hallway with a grimace on his face nodded at Lydia, “Ms. Martin.”

“Mr. Harris,” Lydia smiled politely, when he had passed Lydia pulled a face. “He’s not the nicest.”

Lydia opened her locker and piled more books into Laken’s arms.

“Lydia, you really have to take some of these. How many classes did you take? Were you here from sun up to sundown?”

Lydia sighed dramatically, but closed her empty locker and took half the stack.  The pair walked across the school to the library, where Lydia got someone to hold the door open for her just by giving them a flirty look. Then they stood in the long line of students waiting to turn books in. Lydia took the opportunity to discuss in full how she had found an error in the Chemistry text book and spent a week emailing the book publisher back and forth arguing with them about the error. Laken only mostly understood what Lydia was talking about, so she offered no comments and paid little attention. Instead she took in the library and the line, looking for faces she’d recognize from Lydia’s party.

“Ow. Stop it Stiles.” Laken recognized that voice and that name. One glance at Lydia told her that Lydia had moved on from explaining the error in depth to flirting with the guy in front of them, so Laken turned on her heels.

“Hi.”

The two boys, now in front of her, let out squeals. Stiles nearly dropped the pile of books his hands.

“H-h-heyyy, Lake!” Stiles’ hand went to his head, running it over his stubbly hair.

Scott nodded at her, but was smirking slyly at Stiles.

“What are you doing here?”

Laken jabbed her finger over her shoulder where Lydia was twirling her hair making eyes at the same guy. Stiles jaw tensed and he nodded his head vigorously.

“You know, I never did find out what you were doing sleeping on my floor.”

“You were drunk?”

“No I wasn’t?” Laken raised an eyebrow.

Stiles looked at Scott, wide eyed for help, but Scott just shook his head and looked away. “Well I thought you…were.”

Laken seemed to consider it, her head tilted upward at him, brow furrowed.

“I mean okay, but, I wasn’t? Good looking out though.”

Stiles nodded faintly, staring over Laken’s head at Lydia till Scott nudged him in the ribs. “Right! Yeah, you’re welcome. Yup.”

“So, uh, you’re going to be around the whole summer then?” Scott asked Laken.

“That’s the plan.” She nodded, taking a couple of steps backward as Lydia pulled on her belt loop to move along in the line.

“We’ll see you around then.” Scott nodded, nudging Stiles again.

“Wait? Oh yeah. We will.” Stiles nodded nervously.

There was a beat of silence that Laken took for the end of the conversation, so she turned around. The line moved slow and eventually Lydia got bored and her guy walked off.

“Do you think your mom will find that envelope. I left it on her bed like you said to.” Laken wondered, she had forgotten to give it her before she left.

“Mhmm.” Lydia hummed. “What’s in it anyway?”

“No idea. My mom said it was some papers that Aunt Nat needed and a letter saying thanks.”

“Why a letter? Can’t she just call her?”

Laken shrugged.

“She’ll find it. The real question is if she’ll read it.” Lydia smiled ruefully as she moved forward to place her books on the counter.  She took her time, idly exchanging pleasantries with the Librarian.

Bored, Laken flexed her toes, rising up on them and back down as if she were in a ballet class. The Library was still swarming with kids.  The ones in the line looking annoyed, tired, and just ready to be out of there. Students milling around the rest of the room were hugging friends with wide smiles, chatting excitedly about their summer plans, exchanging phones and yearbooks and selfies.  Danny walked by the desk and waved at Laken and Lydia, moving into the arms of another guy for a hug.

“Stop that, you’ll roll your ankle.” Lydia chided, grabbing onto Laken’s elbow and pulling her away from the desk.

“Actually, it strengthens your ankles. I think.” Laken tilted her head at Lydia.

“You could still hurt yourself, then we’d have to spend the entire summer in the house. _Boring_.” Lydia sang. “You should just wear heels, then you wouldn’t have to be on your toes.”

“Wouldn’t I be on my toes then anyway?” Laken said smugly.

“I just don’t get why you like being short.” Lydia said lowly between her teeth as she smiled and waved as someone she knew walked past.

“I’ve accepted it.” Laken shrugged. “Besides, it makes stealthy things easier.”

Lydia shot her a ludicrous look, Laken elaborated, “like if you spot someone that you really don’t want to see or talk to, you can just weave through a crowd and no one really will see you.”

Lydia shook her head and looped her arm with her younger cousin’s. “Let’s go. The Lake House is calling and it’s saying ‘sun and wine!’”


	5. With The City Far Below

_Secrets don't make friends_  
_We make love, and love falls apart_  
_Tell me when the party ends_  
_And take cover from our future hearts_

~All Time Low ,"[Take Cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XjElTw6FJc)"

* * *

 

A low moan came through the walls.

“Oh my god, Lydia.” Laken groaned to herself, grabbing a pair of headphones from her bag to block the sound.

The two were supposed to be watching _Legally Blonde_ to take a much needed break from the constant sun, but Lydia had disappeared on her way to the store to get kettle corn and came back with a very buff guy. Laken didn’t even think that guys that buff existed outside of superhero movies. Was there something in the water that made everyone unnaturally good looking? She hadn’t even brought home the popcorn, so Laken holed herself up in her room with her laptop, season 2 of Gossip Girl, and a big bag of white chocolate chips. But it was becoming very hard to listen to Blair Waldorf and Chuck Bass with Lydia and that buff guy making sex noises.  At one point she even wondered if they were filming a porn with how loud and fake sounding it was.

This was going to do nothing for the strange dreams she’d been having. Talking ravens, Celtic knots, blood, lots of blood, the white room from the Lake House with faces pushing their way through the wall like some sort of horror movie. She couldn’t remember much more than that. Laken rationalized it as watching too many horror movies.

Gossip Girl just wasn’t cutting it.  Her attention span just wasn’t there, but she needed a distraction from Lydia’s love tryst.  They weren’t even a month into the summer and already Laken had to turn to social media for conversations and human interaction.

2-new friend requests

The notification glared at her when she loaded up Facebook

“Stiles Stilinski wants to be your friend! 1 Mutual Friend   _5 minutes ago_ (Confirm) (Delete Request)”

“Allison Argent wants to be your friend 1 Mutual Friend _2 weeks ago_ (Confirm) (Delete Request)”

Mumbling under her breath, “what the hell,” Laken clicked ‘accept’ on both and quickly loaded up a Pandora Station as another moan rolled through the house.

The Facebook tab blinked as a hollow pop sounded through the headphones over The Maine. She switched tabs to read the message.

_Stiles Stilinski: Honestly I’m surprised._

_Laken Smith: Why’s that?_

_Stiles Stilinski: You still use facebook._

_Laken Smith: Says the guy who sent me a friend request. Who doesn’t still use facebook?_

_Stiles Stilinski: Touché_

_Stiles Stilinski: … So what’s up?_

Stiles Stilinski liked your Photo

_Stiles Stilinski: Crap…sorry._

_Laken Smith: lol. S’fine._

_Laken Smith: Um. Not a whole lot. I was supposed to spend the afternoon watching Legally Blonde with Lydia, but it seems she has other interests at the moment… iykwim. So I’m going between GG, FB, and Pandora. Catching up on internet. The usual._

_Laken Smith: You?_

_Stiles Stilinski: Same_

_Stiles Stilinski: I mean, not same same. I mean that I’m catching up on the internet too. Scott’s got this whole ‘be a better person’ thing going for him so he’s too busy. I also don’t know what you mean, but I’ll pretend I do._

_Laken Smith: :( Aww. All alone. We’re alone together on the internet._

_Laken Smith: Lydia brought home some guy and it sounds like they’re filming porn. Girl’s got some vocal range. Or maybe it’s the guy. Whichever. It’s fine, I’d just rather not be within range._

_Laken Smith: If she wants to have sex that’s cool, but I wish she’d have texted me or something and let me know that she wasn’t bringing home kettle corn…and maybe hung up a proverbial sock on the doorknob._

_Laken Smith: and not have gotten my hopes up for a Legally Blonde movie night._

_Laken Smith: I’m sorry._

_Stiles Stilinski: For what? I hope you have decent headphones._

_Laken Smith: For telling you all of that. You weren’t’ replying. I thought you were shell-shocked. Ha. Yeah I do._

_Stiles Stilinski: Nah. Then you’re set._

_Stiles Stilinski: Listen, I know you’re here to spend time with Lydia and your aunt but if you ever need to get away you can always call me up._

_Laken Smith: yeah?_

_Stiles Stilinski: Yeah!_

_Laken Smith: Thanks._

_Stiles Stilinski: I’ll even make sure to get kettle corn. ;)_

_Stiles Stilinski: But I’m not sitting through Legally Blonde. The Notebook, maybe._

_Laken Smith: lol_

The conversation snowballed from there, music, movies, tv shows, books. Stiles even convinced her to friend request a few of the people from Lydia’s party like Danny, Scott, and even Jackson. There was even a friend request from Scott that appeared right before midnight, that Laken highly suspected was due to Stiles.

On the other side of the computer, Stiles Stilinski had made up his mind. Officially. He had said it before to Scott, but he wasn’t sure he had meant it. This time he did. He was going to try and move on from Lydia. He knew he couldn’t hang on to her while she was healing from Jackson, he needed to be her friend instead. After the semester they went through, they all just needed to be there for each other.


	6. Your Eyes Are Welling Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this chapter we're moving full force into season 3's plot. This one took a while to feel out, but I'm finally mostly happy with it. Enjoy!

_Oh, and everybody knows this is the part_  
_Of breaking down in anybody's arms_

_~Mayday Parade, "[Walk On Water Or Drown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0GDgiKH1FE)"_

* * *

 

Everything was going wrong. The whole _week_ was going wrong.

The Martin house was in complete disarray. All thanks to Penelope C. Smith - sister of Natalie Martin, mother of Laken Smith. Missing. Flakey. Words were being thrown around like that. They just made everyone feel worse.

Laken didn’t understand it, she talked to her mother on the phone just three days before. Everything was fine. She told her that Grandma was on the road to recovery and staying with a PT for a week to make sure she was physically capable then she’d be home. Nothing sounded like it was wrong.

But yesterday afternoon the Martin women took Laken to the airport, and things started to crash. Laken’s ticket wasn’t in the system. Her emergency credit card was cut off so she couldn’t buy a new ticket home. Her mom wasn’t answering her phone. Neither was Grandma Betty.  Laken didn’t know any of the neighbor’s numbers to call them.

When they got back to the Martin’s home, they found a large moving van parked in the driveway with a fairly impatient and annoyed crew waiting. It was chaos. At first Natalie refused to sign for the truck, when she finally did after a round of arguing with the men, she found that it was full of boxes marked with Laken’s name. Her niece’s entire life packed away in the truck. Laken’s bed frame, dresser, desk, mattress, boxes and boxes of things that she had carefully packed away for the move to Grandma Betty’s guest house. Everything. Even her little blue Kia had been toted across the country to Natalie Martin’s driveway.

When the confusion that clouded Laken’s thoughts faded, she knew she wasn’t going home. She fought back the tears in her eyes and sat in the grass, eyes unfocused on the moving van as they moved her entire life to Natalie’s directions. And she watched as the truck drove away.

It was then that Natalie Martin had finally gotten around to opening that large envelope that Laken brought with her and locked herself in her room far away from her daughter and niece for a solid hour.

Between Natalie and Laken, Lydia was overwhelmed..

“Okay, okay, that’s it!” Lydia tossed up her hands, holding tightly to her phone. “We’re going pick up Allison and do a group thing with some guys I met at the mall. Odette, honey.” Lydia said as she put a hand on Laken’s shoulder, making her crack a small smile at the nickname. “You need a distraction. Mom will figure this all out. She’s getting in touch with the local police and they’ll get in touch with your local police to look for your mom. It will all be okay. For now, distraction.”

That only made the younger feel slightly better. She knew Aunt Natalie would do whatever she could to get her back home to her mom, whether that came from a place of love or a place of not wanting the extra burden, though, was a toss up even to Laken and Lydia.

~~

Laken was in the backseat of Lydia’s car. She had chosen the ‘bitch seat’ so she didn’t have to ask Lydia or Allison to repeat themselves every time they directed the conversation at her; it always got old to have to repeat yourself because the person in the backseat was sitting with an earful of stereo. For the most part she wasn’t paying attention anyway. Lydia was giving Allison a run-down of this so called “group thing” that they’d both been roped into.

“So you’re totally over him?” Allison turned in her seat, piquing Laken’s attention.

“Would I be going out on a triple-date if I wasn’t? Yes, both of you, it’s a triple date, you’ll live. You both need to get out there.” Lydia scoffed, eyeing Laken in the rearview mirror leaving unspoken reiterations about distractions hanging between them.

“Ohmygod.” Allison rushed out, sinking in her seat. “Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod, I can’t see him, not now.”

“What?” Laken and Lydia spoke, and turned their heads toward Allison, in unison. It was a little creepy. Allison was looking past Lydia’s shoulder at the car next to them.

No, not car, Jeep. Laken eyed the blue jeep, it was hard for her to see exactly what had Allison so worked up, the frame of the Jeep blocked the people inside from her vision. She finally caught sight of Stiles and hazarded a guess that the ‘him’ Allison was referring to was Scott. It didn’t take a genius to tell that Allison was severely uncomfortable.

“Lydia, go. Just go.” Laken leaned forward in her seat to help Allison out.

“But the light.” Lydia gestured to the red light feebly.

“There’s no one around here. It’s a straight street, why is there a light anyway??” Laken gestured at the empty street in front of them, trying to push down her bad mood for Allison’s sake. Allison sent her a look of gratitude.

Lydia sighed and narrowed her eyes at Laken, but the car moved forward.

“You alright?” Laken asked, putting a hand on Allison’s shoulder.

Allison nodded, eyes going to the side mirror. She slouched into the seat, resigned “Lydia stop. We need to go back and talk to them.”

“Wait what? Why?” Laken looked between the two in confusion.

“We just couldn’t get away from them fast enough.” Lydia continued the thought.

One look from Allison got Lydia to let out a frustrated noise and hit the breaks. 

Laken turned to look at the Jeep following behind them and frowned. “They stopped, too.”

Allison turned around, too. “Why would they stop?”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “It’s Stiles and Scott, do you really want to try applying logic to those two?”

“Maybe they saw we stopped and didn’t want to pass us?” Lake suggested, shrugging as she looked between Allison and Lydia.

Allison bit her lip, “maybe we should go back?”

“Um.” Laken’s eyes caught a movement in the dark but before she could mention it, it came barreling at the car. A deer with wide wild eyes, Laken had seen a lot of deer growing up, wild deer. None looked as rabid as this one, even the rabid ones looked calmer.

The process of the deer running through the high-beams and straight into Lydia’s windowsheild happened so fast, but it felt like slo-motion. Glass shattered and rained down on the girls. Lydia and Allison jerked out of the way of the brunt of it, most of it flew straight up the middle of the car at Laken’s face. She sat frozen as glass bit shallow cuts across her cheek.  Of course her day just got worse.

Allison and Lydia rushed out of the car. Laken slumped in her seat, she was shutting down, this was just too much, all systems were in meltdown mode. Her eyes were focused on the deer half crashed through the windshield, till her eyes unfocused themselves.

“Are you okay?!” Scott yelled, panicking as the doors to the Jeep slammed shut somewhere behind Lydia’s Toyota.

“It came out of no where” Lydia sounded just on the outside edge of calm. The last few days of stress were bubbling over in her too.

“Are you hurt?” Stiles.

“It ran right into us.” Lydia was borderline hysterical now.

“Are you okay?” Scott again as he gave Allison the once over.

“I’m okay.” Allison.

“I’m not okay!” Lydia insisted, her voice taking on a shrill tone. “I am totally freaking out! How the hell does it just run into us? It was like.. it was like it was crazy.”

“No, it was Scared.” Scott frowned as he edged closer to the hood of the car. “Actually, terrified.”

“Lake?” Allison looked around for the third girl.

“Oh god Laken’s still here? I thought she flew home?” Stiles said as the door to the backseat was pulled open. He brushed glass off the seat next to her with his sleeve.

“Lake are you okay?” Allison said, standing as far away from the deer as she could.

“Oh god. Lake, get out of the car.” Lydia sounded like she was half scolding a bratty toddler, half full of concern.

“Lake are you okay?” Stiles gently put his hand on Laken’s shoulder.

Laken’s jaw clinched and she snapped. “No! I’m not okay!” Stiles hand brushed blood off her cheek with the cuff of his flannel. “What else could go wrong today?! Like I wasn’t having a crappy-ass day already?! At least this time something’s running at me instead of away!”

Lydia felt her heart drop as Laken looked at her over Stiles’ shoulder.

“Come on, let’s get you guys out of here.” Stiles pulled on Laken’s arm gently to get her to move out of the car.

Out of the car, Laken sank onto the pavement, crouched down with her head against her knees.

 


	7. Decide To Let It Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know these chapters are kind of short, but they feel better shorter than trying to make them longer. Also this part of the story happened a little sooner than I expected, but it fits here. Also this chapter has vomit in it.

_Show me what it's for_   
_Make me understand it_   
_I've been crawling in the dark_   
_Looking for the answer_   
_Is there something more_   
_Than what I've been handed?_   
_I've been crawling in the dark_   
_Looking for the answer_

~Hoobastank, "[Crawling In The Dark](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOHxtOLfvIo)"

* * *

 

Lydia got a ride to school with Allison the next morning. Laken offered her the keys to the Kia but the registration needed to be fixed for California, along with all of Laken’s other credentials, so until that was taken care of Natalie had marked it off as emergencies only.

While Lydia was at school, Laken and Natalie shuffled from various offices around town. The Sheriff’s station which had no word on her mother and her grandmother seemed to be denying that she even had a granddaughter, the Notary to confirm the legality of some papers that were in that envelope, the School to transfer her credits, and the DMV to start the process of transferring the car registration and Laken’s less than six month old license over to California criteria. Natalie Martin clutching the large tan envelope at every stop, wearing creases into it.

Laken picked at the tiny scabbed over scratch on her cheek absentmindedly, it itched.

“Stop that.” Natalie gently pulled Laken’s hand away. “You’ll scar.”

She felt like she was 5 years old again and being scolded by the Principal for kicking a boy in the shin after he pulled on her braid and stuck gum into it, she’d had to cut off 4 inches of hair and he deserved it.

“No it won’t.” Laken mumbled bitterly just to spite Aunt Natalie’s opinion.

“I need to talk to Michael. Please behave.” Natalie was on edge with her.

Laken sulked, she had been dragged around all day and talked about like she wasn’t there.

A man in a suit gestured for them to come into the office, but one look from Natalie had Laken glued to her seat. Bored she texted Lydia and then Stiles, even though they were in class, but neither replied. Laken closed her eyes and slouched down into the overly plush chair, trying to block out the overly stuffy office with mahogany everything and the guy in the suit sitting at the desk that kept looking at her funny, wishing to be anywhere else even school.

Behind her eyelids she saw one of the classrooms Lydia had shown her, filled with tired teens, Stiles, Lydia, and Allison. For some reason she couldn’t picture Scott sitting in a desk after everything she’d heard about him and sports. The daydream turned sour with screams and breaking glass, something flying over head.

“Laken.”

Her eyes snapped open to see Uncle Mike standing in front of her. He looked exhausted, mentally and physically, judging off the dark circles under his eyes and the tense look on his face.

“Uh. Hi?” Laken sat up straight, trying to pretend she wasn’t tired too.

“Your aunt has told me some pretty interesting things.” He started out tentatively, glancing at the now empty desk in the corner of the room. “Has your mom told you anything…unusual lately?”

“No?”

“Nothing…shocking?”

“No? What are you talking about?” Her nose wrinkled at him, but she kept a steady face despite her heart racing and a spreading feeling of dread.

Michael Martin stood up and looked at Natalie, who stood hovering in the doorway grimacing.

“Natalie, let me talk to her alone. I’ll bring her home when we’re finished here.” He spoke stiffly as if in the middle of a business deal. “Penny was your sister, I won’t interfere with her intentions. Laken will stay with you and Lydia.”

“What is going on? Fuck.” Laken moaned under her breath, eyes darting between her Aunt and Uncle.  If either heard her they gave no indication.

Natalie simply nodded and handed Michael a set of xeroxed papers. She turned on her toes and walked off, her heels clicking on the polished floors.

Michael looked uncomfortable as he pulled a chair up infront of Laken and sat, shuffling the papers in his hand.

“Your aunt gave me a copy of the papers your mom asked you to give to her, I hope that’s okay.” He wasn’t really asking, if he was it wasn’t like Laken actually had a say. “You didn’t know what was in that envelope?”

“No?” it seemed to be all she could say, could they stop tip-toeing around like a pack of coyotes waiting to attack and just tell her what was going on instead of trying to pull out of her some latent information.

Michael took a deep breath. “Remember when your father, Everett, died.” It seemed to pain him to say those words.

Laken pursed her lips at him, how could she not?

“Remember how you and Ms. Betty had to give DNA swabs? To prove linage?”

“Jesus.” Laken let out a string of cruses under her breath, “I’m not having an episode of psychogenic amnesia. No fugue states or situation-specific amnesia, nothing is wrong with the neurobiology of my brain, it functions fine. I remember all of that in excruciating detail.”

Michael cringed, something she said had hit a nerve. 

“Jesus Christ.” He muttered, rubbing his neck, “it must be in the genes.” He cleared his throat and opened his mouth again.

Laken cut him off, “can you stop talking to me like I’m five years old, thanks.”

“The DNA test came back negative. You are biologically not his child.” Once it was out, Michael realized he should have said it less abruptly.

“What?!”

“You are my daughter.”

“Oh My FUCKING GOD!” Laken felt warm. Like she was going to pass out. She shook her head. “No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry it’s so disappointing to you. But yes.”

“But. But that means.” Laken sputtered. She was a year and a month younger than Lydia. “Oh god.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What?! No, no you aren’t. How…but…my dad…Aunt Natalie…Lydia…MY MOM???” Laken may have a top percentile IQ, but she couldn’t wrap her head around this. “You cheated with My MOM. Oh god.”

“Natalie and I are divorced, you know that and I know Lydia told you about it. But your mother wished for you to live with her to grow up with Lydia. You’re under Natalie’s custody. I never did get around to telling Penny that your aunt and I were getting a divorce.”

Laken was sweating and a queasy feeling spread through her chest.

“You can tell Lydia. She might take it easier from you anyway.” Michael sighed.

“You and my mom.” Laken wanted to vomit.

He sighed and shrugged, “I married the wrong sister maybe.  I loved your mother too. I was confused and struggling.”

Laken nearly threw up that time. “Why is this all about you?”

“Come on. I’ll take you home. I can see you’re going to need some time. This is a lot to take in.” he said it so condescendingly, this time Laken did throw up, all over his patent leather shoes.

* * *

 

“You threw up on his shoes?” Lydia pursed her lips, trying to hide a smirk.

Laken threw herself backward on Lydia’s bed. “Yes.”

“Why?”       

“I don’t know!” Laken tossed her hands up. “It just happened. I’ve never been this stressed or… or overwhelmed. What with last night and that deer and that whole day was just a stress-y mess, on top of my flight home being voided out. I don’t know! You tell me, why did I puke all over his shoes!”

Lydia sighed, “I can’t believe we’re sisters.”

“Half. Half-sisters. I think. Are we half since our moms are sisters? Or is that more three-quarters?”

“Can we… can we not tell everyone about this right now?” Lydia picked at a pill in the fabric of her comforter. “I just… I think explaining it would be really stressful. For you.” Lydia rushed. “New school, new life. People are mean. I know. _I_ was one of them.”

Laken nodded, burring her face into one of Lydia’s frilly pillow. “Yeah.”

“Just until we figure this out. Maybe we’ll tell Allison. So we can have someone outside of this family to talk to.”

“Okay.” Laken said forlornly, picking her head up to look at Lydia. “What happened to your ankle?”

Lydia rubbed the bandage. “Prada bit me this morning. After you and mom left.”

“Oh.” Laken couldn’t help the small smile on her face as she curled up on her side. “I guess we’re all just having a bad week.”

“Yeah.” Lydia laughed dryly.

“So you and Allison?”

“Huh?” Lydia laughed.

“You guys are pretty close.”

“Oh.” Lydia turned a little pink. “Yeah, we are. She’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had. She doesn’t want anything from me because I’m popular. Or I was anyway.”

“You’re still popular.” Laken grinned, nudging Lydia’s knee.

“Not like it used to be.”

“What happened.”

“I told you about how there was a mountain lion attacking people? You know that I had a stay in the hospital after winter formal.” Lydia shrugged. “I went roaming around in the woods naked for a few days and they called it a fugue state. I wasn’t nearly as popular after that.”

“But Allison stuck by you?”

“Yeah.” A small smile spread across Lydia’s lips. “She did. And she brought Stiles and Scott with her.”

“Sounds like the friend of a lifetime.”

Lydia hummed and rubbed her wrist. “There’s only one like her, that’s for sure.”

Laken took Lydia’s hand in hers and traced the discoloration on her wrist. “Okay, so now that I’ve spilled about my awful disaster of a day, it’s your turn. All you told me was that you didn’t even make it past English before they sent everyone home.”

“I don’t know.” Lydia struggled to find the best wording. “We were in class, and the teacher made everyone turn off their phones after sending some mass text to us. It was some quote from _Heart of Darkness_. “

“Oh. I’ve read that one.”

“Of course you have.” Lydia patted Laken’s hand. “So Scott got pulled out of class since he didn’t have his phone on, his mom called the school to speak to him; and while they were in the hall Stiles asked about the bandage on my ankle and how you were doing, and something about how animals react badly when there’s something going on.”

“Like when there’s an earthquake and all the animals move or right before a storm when everything stills, even the animals and insects?”  Laken interjected.

“Exactly.” Lydia smirked. “Then these big black crows started crashing into the window of our classroom…” Lydia trailed off.

“What?” Laken’s chest tightened.

“Yeah. The glass started to shatter and everyone had to duck for cover. Then some lady grabbed my and Allison’s wrist in the hallway after it all and left killer bruises on our arms.”

“Are you sure?”

“What do you mean am I sure? I lived through it. There’s a mark on my wrist.”

“I just… I had a daydream I thought it was because I was nervous about starting school or, you know, a metaphor for how things are going right now. I don’t know I didn’t think too hard about it, there’s just too much going on.”

“What are you talking about, Lake.”

“I…when I was in your dad’s office…our dad? God that sounds weird. Uh, I closed my eyes because your mom was talking forever and his secretary or whoever was looking at me weird. I had this daydream I guess. I was imagining what it would be like at school, you know having classes with you guys and stuff and it ended like that. Not with the bruise but with the windows cracking and stuff.”

Lydia frowned. “It was probably just the stress.” She checked her phone. “Allison’s on her way over. I think we’re going to a party tonight. Want to come?”

“Nah. I think I’m going to sleep. I’m exhausted and I’m getting a migraine.”

“Yeah. Puking on dad’s shoes will do that for you.”

“Asshole.” Laken snorted, throwing a pillow at Lydia and hauling herself out of the bed. “Have fun.”

“Thanks. Sleep well.”


	8. No Point In Being Down

_Just drive!_   
_Time is waiting race the light_   
_They'll read about us when we die_   
_Don't stop for anything tonight_   
_The world is ending so just drive_

~Four Year Strong, "[Just Drive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmHesQ1erHg)"

* * *

 

On her first day of school, Laken was a ball of nerves.  She woke up before her alarm, ironed her clothes, did yoga to calm down her racing heart, fixed her hair – twice, tried to eat to calm her stomach, and fretted over little details.  She did everything she could to calm her nerves, but nothing was working.

Natalie found her in the kitchen at 5 a.m. baking a hummingbird cake and handed her a new license, the keys to her Kia, and a printout of her schedule that was emailed out that morning with a tight smile.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” Lydia frowned, heels clicking on the concert driveway as she walked next to Laken, a warm slice of cake in her hand.

“No.” Laken shook her head. Lydia reached over to smooth a stray strand of long hair and nodded.

“I just thought it would be easier. You’ve never driven it before.”

“Yeah, but if I don’t I’ll get nervous just sitting there. Driving will blow off some nervous energy. I’ll have something else to focus on other than walking into a new school.”

“Well you look good.” Lydia smiled, cradling a thermos of coffee. “So if you’re turning heads, it’ll at least be for a good reason. It’s sporty chic. Boys love sporty chic.”

That just made Laken more nervous. She wanted to fly under the radar with her sleek pony tail, black shorts and grey baseball tee. Although Lydia’s insistence on red lipstick and dramatic eyeliner was probably why she wouldn’t be laying low. She needed time to adjust, not boys.

Laken sat behind the wheel and took a deep breath.  “Lyds. I’m nervous.”

Lydia sighed, “you will be fine. You’re my cousin. You’re my sister. We handle these things with style.”

Huffing, Laken turned the key, “I’m still nervous though.”

To compensate for the nerves, Laken dove how she drove best. Windows cracked down just enough to let in the cool Beacon Hills morning air and her ipod blasting out her morning playlist of hype-music. Lydia tried to turn it down several times only for Laken to crank it up one notch louder than before with the steering wheel controls. She eventually gave in and sang along with Laken.

Laken parked in an empty spot away from most of the cars near the school’s doors. A baby blue jeep pulled up next the car as she raised the power windows and killed the engine; Lydia insisted on lowing the volume once the pulled into the parking lot.

Looking up from her phone, Lydia sighed. “I have to go find Allison. It’s important. You’ll be fine.” Lydia patted Laken’s thigh and left her sitting in the car alone.

Stiles waved at Laken through the window, waiting on the sidewalk. He nodded to Lydia as she passed him and tugged at the straps of his backpack. Laken exhaled slowly through her nose and got out of the car.

“I could, uh, hear your stereo, like the whole way here.” Stiles grinned.

“Yeah? Are you going to tell your dad on me? Write out a noise citation?” Laken teased, trying to hide her nerves.

“Nah.” Stiles winked. “I’ll let ya slide this time.”

“Following me though.” Laken pursed her lips. “Since you’re letting my loud music slide, I guess I’ll have to let the stalking go too.”

Stiles face went pink. “I –I wasn’t… we take the same route to school. I swear.”

“If I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re more wound up than I am.”

“Nervous?”

“Incredibly.”

“You’ll do fine, I know it sucks at first, but you’ll get used to it. Just remember to breathe.” Stiles hesitated. “C’mon. I’ll help you find your first class.”

“You can ask you know.” Laken sighed.

“A-ask what?”

“Where I was yesterday.”

“You had to straighten out your paperwork right? Get your transcript sent over?”

Laken nodded, “yeah. Believe it or not, yesterday was even worse than that deer incident. _I_ was even worse.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. He waited.

“I puked.” Laken huffed, throwing up her hands a little. “There I said it. The stress got to be so much. This whole week, especially the last 3 days, they’ve just been too much. And now I’m here and I’m freaking out. I knew where I stood at my old school. I  knew my academic standings, I knew where to find my friends everyday, I knew where to go, I knew all the teachers. Here? Here I don’t know anything.”

Stiles bumped his shoulder into Laken’s, “for what it’s worth, I think you can handle it. Yeah it’s been a shitty week, but you’re here.”

“Yeah.” Laken’s shoulders sagged.

“Scott, Allison, and I’ll keep an eye out for you. And you know Lydia’s not going to let you sink.”

"Yeah, but at some point she's going to take away the floaties."

Stiles pointed at the door to a classroom. “That’s you. We have a lot of the same classes, so I'll see you later. I’m going find Scott. You think you’ll be okay?”

“Yeah.” Laken answered tightly.

“Remember to breathe.”

“Hey Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

Stiles grinned and nodded, before turning around and going off to find Scott.

~

Lydia Martin paced in front of Allison in an empty classroom as they waited for Scott and Stiles to show up with Derek Hale.

“I want to tell her.”

“Tell her what?”

“About us. About me.” Lydia twisted her fingers together. “About all of this.”

“Lydia.”

“She’s going to be brought into it. You know it’ll happen. She’s related to me, she's my sister. " The word felt foreign to Lydia's tongue. "What if…” Lydia trailed off but Allison understood.

“If she’s like you?”

Lydia nodded, brow creased with worry.

“We’ll deal with it.  You said yourself, she’s under a lot of stress. Maybe let things calm down a little first. Let everyone adjust. Scott’s secret isn’t something you can tell her. But you own, it’s your choice. And you can tell her mine. Although that might lead to her asking who we hunt or if werewolves are real, depending on how you phrase it.”

Lydia sighed and sat down in a desk. “I just don’t want her to be caught off guard if something happens.”

Allison shrugged, “talk to Scott then.”

“No, you’re right. I’ll wait till things settle down.”


	9. Its A Choice That You Make

_You walk a tightrope, walk a little tightrope_   
_Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh this heart is burning up_

~Walk The Moon, "[Tightrope](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPedH9B8AAE)"

* * *

 

Laken found her way to the Econ room with Danny’s help. Lydia, Stiles, Scott, and Allison had all disappeared.

“How’s your schedule?” Danny spoke kindly, almost everything Danny did was kindhearted.

“It could be better. But as long as I have the classes I need to meet college criteria, I guess I can’t complain.” Laken frowned at the paper with her schedule. “I did transfer here last minute.”

Danny nodded, “at least you didn’t get stuck with something you really didn’t want.”

“I didn’t want Econ.”

“It’s an easy class and Coach isn’t boring.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Danny took a seat and pointed Laken to the seat behind him.

“You should go for cross-country, if you’re worried, Coach gives extra credit.”

“Is he that desperate for a team?”

“I’m not sure. I think he just likes to maximize his potential wins. And it makes it look like his sports are popular.”

Danny turned around when Coach walked into the room, closely followed by a few students, Scott and Stiles. Stiles ducked in behind Coach with Scott closely following, quickly making their way to empty seats. Scott took the seat behind Laken and Stiles the one across the isle. Coach Finnstock wasted no time getting right into the lesson as soon as the door snapped shut.

“The stock market is based on two principles. What are they?” Coach yelled in his usual sarcastic enthusiasm for everything. He looked around for raised hands. “Yes, McCall, you can go to the bathroom. Anyone else?”

Laken glanced over her shoulder to look at Scott, much like the rest of the class.  Judging from the looks he was getting, he didn’t usually know the answer to these things.

“Uh, no, Coach. I know the answer.”

Coach started laughing but sobered up quickly when he realized no one else was taking part. “Oh, you’re serious.”

“Yes. Risk and reward.” Scott nodded.

No one bothered to write that down, it wasn’t a hard concept.

“Wow, who are you?” Coach laughed, pacing around. Everyone’s eyes followed him cautiously in anticipation of his next move. He stalked right up to Scott’s desk and slapped it. “And what have you done to McCall? Don’t answer that, I like you better. I like you better. Does anyone have a quarter? A quarter?” Coach paced down the row between Stiles and Scott.

“Yep!” Stiles perked up, wiggling around in his seat. He winked at Laken as he dug in his pocket. Naturally, Stiles didn’t notice until he whipped the quarter out and the condom caught on his sleeve and went flying through the air to the floor. His eyes went wide as he locked eyes with Scott, then Laken, then Scott again, then Coach; slowly his face morphed into one of horror and turned pink.

Coach picked up the blue packet with bright yellow writing proclaimed ‘XXL’ on it and winced. “Stilinski. I think you… uh… you dropped this. And, uh, congratulations.”

Stiles sank into his seat, stuffing the condom back into his pocket.

“Risk and Reward!” Coach proclaimed loudly, moving on from the little scene. “Put the quarter in the mug, win the reward!” Coach put a mug on the flood. “Okay! Watch Coach.” he stood a few floor tiles away from the mug and tossed the quarter. It clinked as it landed in the ceramic cup. “That’s how you do it! Okay, Danny. Risk. Reward.”

Coach made his way up to Danny and placed the quarter on his desk to tempt him.

He studied Coach with a dubious expression on his face and spoke cautiously. “What’s the reward?”

“You don’t have to take the pop quiz tomorrow.”

“Coach, it’s not a pop quiz if you tell us about it.” Danny sighed.

Laken and the girl next to her stifled giggles.

“Danny, you know, I really expect more from you at this point, really.” Coach sighed and shook his head as if Danny had disappointed him and moved on. Finnstock scanned the classroom for his next victim. Laken sank down in her seat so that Coach locked eyes with Scott over the top of her head. “McCall. Risk. Reward. The risk. If you don’t put that quarter in the mug, you have to take the pop… the… uh.. the quiz, and… you have to write an essay. Risk – more work, reward…. Uh… no work at all. Or choose not to play.”

Half the class jumped as Coach slammed Stiles’ quarter onto Scott’s desk, and everyone craned their necks to watch the exchange.

“But isn’t this just chance?” Scott’s face scrunched up as he weighed the quarter in his palm.

“No. you know your abilities. Your coordination. Your focus. Past experience. All factors affecting the outcome. So what’s it going to be McCall? More work, no work, or… choose not to play?”

Scott shook his head and handed the quarter back to Coach. “No play.”

“Okay. Who’s next? Who wants the quarter?” Coach wore a slightly crazed grin as he faced the class.

Stiles stood up while drumming on his desk, clearly he’d moved on from his earlier state of embarrassment. Laken briefly considered that Stiles was taking this as his own personal form of peacocking.

“There ya go!” Coach grinned, motioning for Stiles to come up. “There’s a gambling man! Come on, step up, step up! All right, Stilinski.” Coach clapped his hands and handed him the quarter.

“Stiles.”

“Yeah, Coach I got it.”

“Stiles.”

That wasn’t Coach. Everyone in the class had their eyes on Sheriff Stilinski standing in the doorway instead of Stiles and the cup. Mr. Stilinski, in full Sheriff mode, motioned for Stiles to follow him into the hallway. Just behind him a few deputies stood waiting.

“Is there reason to worry?” Laken glanced at Scott. He shook his head, but he had a distant look on his face.

“Okay.” Coach began slowly, turning to the class. “Who wants a go?”

Danny surprised everyone by standing up and taking the quarter from Coach. Danny took aim and sank the quarter.

“Reward!” Coach cheered as the door opened and Stiles reentered. “Okay! Who’s next? Greenburg, put your hand down, you don’t have a chance.”

At the back of the classroom, Greenburg sank down in his seat pouting.

 “So, question.” Laken whispered into Danny’s ear, “does Coach always talk like he’s giving away cars on The Price is Right?”

Danny snorted and grinned, “most of the time.”

Laken patted Danny’s shoulder and settled back into her seat. Glancing at the door, she got an idea.

“Coach.” Laken raised her hand high.

“Do you want to try?” Coach grinned holding up the quarter.

“Actually, may I be excused.”

Coach looked confused but nodded.  Laken gathered up her bag and hurried out the door, hoping that the sheriff was still in the hallway.

“Sheriff!” Laken called out when she spotted his retreating back.

Sheriff Stilinski stilled and turned.

“May I help you?”

Suddenly Laken felt very small and shy. She nodded. “Sir, my aunt, Natalie Martin, she told me she was in contact with the sheriff’s department…” She trailed off, uncertain of how to phrase the last week in a clear way without rambling.

“Your mom.” Sheriff Stilinski looked surprised. “You’re Laken?”

“Yes, sir.” Laken nodded, feeling light headed and breathless. “Have you… have you heard anything?”

Sheriff Stilinski frowned, “I’m sorry, Laken. We reached out to them and they said they’d look into it and get back to us. These things take some time. Looking for a missing person can take a while. They have to run all possible scenarios.”

“I… I know that. I just had hoped they’d have passed something along. Anything.”

He shook his head and laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. “All we know is that they’re looking. I’ll put a call in to them this weekend for an update.”

“Thank you.” Laken said it a small voice.

Sheriff Stilinski patted her shoulder, “get back to class.” The corners of his eyes crinkled with a gentle smile.

Laken nodded and turned to go back to class. She looked over her shoulder to see if the Sheriff was still standing there, but he had turned around and was walking out the door. Instead of going back to class, Laken ducked into the bathroom for the rest of the period.

~~

After school, Laken sat with Allison and Lydia in the library. Allison huffed in frustration, typing away on her laptop and glancing every now and then at a sketch of her and Lydia’s bruise. Lydia was correcting Laken’s math problems and Allison’s science worksheet, and Laken was  proofreading Lydia and Allison’s English papers while using her own as a guide.

“I want one.” Lydia hummed, distracted by a couple of boys wondering around the library.

“Which one?” Laken grinned teasingly at Lydia, following her line of sight to a set of twins.

“The straight one, obviously.” Lydia tilted her head following the one she deemed ‘straight’ as the other one checked out Danny as he walked by.

“Obviously.” Allison and Laken chorused sardonically.

Lydia rolled her eyes and raised her pencil at them threateningly. “Maybe I’ll just happen to miss correcting a few wrong answers.”

“And maybe I’ll just allow you to have run on sentences.”

“I’d just catch them later.” Lydia scoffed, reaching for her coffee.

“What if it’s not a symbol?” Allison was studying her arm again, gaze flickering from her wrist to Lydia’s cup.

“What like a logo?” Laken cocked her head to the side, “I think I saw one like that when I was downtown with Aunt Natalie, it was all faded and boarded up. Or maybe I dreamed about it. It’s hard to tell these days, sometimes I have such vivid dreams. But that does raise some questions, like how someone could imprint a logo on your wrists. Maybe she had something in her hands?”

“Yeah… Maybe…” Allison shifted in her seat.

Laken pushed her glasses higher on her nose before barreling on to stop an awkward silence from falling over them. “Or it could just be pareidolia. I saw it on a Brain Games episode about patterns, it’s when your brain tries to make sense of images that make no sense. Like seeing images in static, or shapes in clouds, or when you think that the headlights and grill of a car look like a face. It’s just the way our brains are wired.”

“It’s really easy to tell that you two are related, you may not look obviously related but you both have the same brain.” Allison motioned between the two, amused.

“What?”

“I said the same thing earlier.” Lydia grinned, tapping her pencil against the table rhythmically. Then she arched an eyebrow at Laken teasingly. “Though I haven’t been watching _Brain Games_. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Lydia stood up from the table and stalked over to the twin she had pointed out earlier, hips swaying.


	10. If It Wasn't For Your Sister, Baby You'd Be Far Away

“So I had the weirdest dream last night.” Laken started talking as soon as she and Lydia joined Allison. “Our English teacher was this  _druid_ performing human sacrifices. I didn’t get to find out why though, I started to feel like I couldn’t breathe and I woke up. Turns out I had some how wrapped my throw blanket around my neck from all the tossing and turning.”

“Ms. Blake? She’s a little strict, but I doubt she’s evil.” Allison laughed.

“You have the strangest dreams.” Lydia said, shaking her head.

Laken hummed in agreement, “Yeah I do. Like the one time, about two years ago, I dreamed that there was an alien zoo in the storage space of a Hancock Fabrics. That was a wild dream.”

Allison laughed, tucking her chin into her chest, making the papers that she was holding against her chest crinkle.

“What’s with the papers?” Lydia stopped in front of Allison,  blocking her from going anywhere.

“I found something. A logo.”

“Oooh. Can I see it?” Laken held out her hand for the paper.

Allison glanced at Lydia, who nodded, before surrendering the now wrinkled pages.

“It’s a bank. Or it was.” Allison explained the images.

“This looks like the building I told you about yesterday. It’s abandoned and all boarded up.” Laken passed the papers to Lydia.

Lydia studied the pages, humming to herself as she tilted the pages and squinted at the images.

“So mystery girl leaves a bruise on our arms that turns out to be the logo for a bank?” Lydia scoffed, handing the papers back to Allison. “What’s she trying to do? Give us investment advice?”

“Lydia, the bank’s boarded up and abandoned, obviously you can’t invest in it if it doesn’t exist. If it did, I’m sure you’d have recognized the logo before Allison dug up those pictures.”

“It’s been closed for years.” Allison added, nodding thankfully to Laken.

“What happened?”

“I think there was a robbery?” Allison glanced at the pages she’d printed out. She pulled one from the middle that was full of text. “Yeah a robbery. Someone snuck in through the ducts and made off with a lot of money.”

Laken took the page from her and read a passage that Allison had highlighted in pink. “”Suspect was lowered into the Bank from the rooftop air conditioning unit by a second suspect and maneuvered through the ventilation system to the outside wall of the main vault. The suspect then drilled into the stone wall over a twelve hour period and through a system of pulleys transferred money to where suspect number two was waiting on the roof.” This isn’t a robbery. This is a movie scale _heist_.”

“Why aren’t you telling Scott?”

“Because according to _someone_ , I need to find something real.” Allison bristled, taking the page back from Laken.

“What they didn’t believe that your bruise looked like something?” Laken frowned, and glanced at Lydia’s wrist. The bruise had yellowed and was fading fast, but still there.

“Something like that.” Allison sighed. “Which reminds me, um, I can’t come over today. I have an errand to run after school.”

Allison hurried off into the school. Laken turned on her toes to face Lydia.

“Movie night?”

Lydia nodded, “face masks too.”

“Of course. And this time… don’t forget the kettle corn.”

The pair bumped shoulders and followed Allison’s lead, heading into the school.

~~

Laken was yawning before the dismissal bell even rang. The day was long and boring. Even Danny’s eyelids were drooping during Coach Finnstock’s lecture about supply and demand. Ms. Blake put half the class to sleep reading a chapter from _As I Lay Dying_ out loud and going off on a tangent about the importance of imagery and allusions; she had to stop several times to yell at them to wake up and pay attention. Lydia’s art teacher played “soothing rain sounds” that made one kid fall asleep into his paint pallet (Greenburg walked around the rest of the day with a smattering of colors across the left side of his face that no one bothered to tell him about).

“I am so ready for a long night in.” Laken leaned into Lydia’s side.

“Homework first.”

“Of course.”

~

At home Lydia and Laken separated to work on their homework. Laken finished her lighter load much sooner than Lydia.  Instead of bothering her, Laken put her laptop on her stomach and perused the internet for anything about her mom, deciding to let Lydia come to her when she was finished.

Slowly the light dimmed around Laken and the moon rose. She anxiously eyed the stack of movies waiting for Lydia. _The Little Mermaid_ and _The Notebook_ , for Lydia. _The_ _Swan Princess_ and _The Princess Bride,_ for Laken. At this rate they’d be lucky to make it through one of them before they both fell asleep.

“Lake?”

Laken started, laptop screen shaking and casting an eerie glow in the darkened room. Lydia stood in the doorway, looking amused.

“I’m going to the store,” she held up a bottle of Ibuprofen, “unless you have some?”

“Nope. Sorry.”

Lydia sighed. “It’s fine. You want to come with me?”

Laken briefly considered her options, then closed her laptop and rolled off the bed. “Sure.”

Lydia waited for Laken to slip on a pair of shoes and picked up Laken’s keys.

“I’m driving.”

In the car, Laken yawned widely and shifted in the passenger seat away from the cool air radiating from the window.

“Full moon tonight.”

“Hm?” Lydia was in a trance, zoned in on the road in front of her.

“The full moon? It’s really clear tonight.”

Lydia hummed in agreement, but didn’t add anything to start a conversation. Laken took a deep breath and leaned forward to pick a radio station that wouldn’t lull her to sleep like the classical station Lydia had put it on, but kept the volume low.

The car slowly stopped in an empty parking lot that Laken was pretty sure wasn’t a Walgreen’s parking lot, or any convenience store parking lot at all.  There was a high brick wall and the smell of chlorine was strong, even from the inside of the car.

“Uh. Lydia? Are we going swimming for your pain killers?” Laken said, frowning in confusion. She turned to give Lydia a confused look, but the drivers seat was empty, keys still in the ignition.

Grabbing the keys, Laken hurried out of the car after Lydia’s retreating back. Lydia hunched against the cold wind, walking quickly across the parking lot. When she stopped short, Laken almost ran into her.

“Lydia?”

Lydia didn’t acknowledge that she even heard her. Instead she was looking at the sign on the high white brick walls declaring that they were at the Beacon Hills Public Pool.

“Look, Lydia. If you want to pretend to be Ariel at the Grotto, we have a pool. In your backyard. And I know it’s kind of cold to go swimming, but we could always turn on the jets in your mom’s tub, that thing is almost as good as a pool.”

Lydia slowly crept forward through the gates. Laken huffed in exasperation and followed.

“Lydia. I don’t think we should be here. Don’t these things have…oh my god. Is that…” Laken trailed off, spotting what looked like a body in the lifeguard chair. A dark pool of blood at it’s base. She swallowed the queasy feeling.

Lydia, however, didn’t seem to see that. Instead she was focused on the floating body in the pool.

“Oh God.” Lydia breathed.

Laken fumbled with her keys till she found her flashlight keychain and clicked it on to shine on the body in the pool.

“Lydia, I think that’s just a dummy.” Her voice shook nervously.

“Are you sure?” Lydia responded as she crouched down to examine it. She got down on her knees to reach it and turned it over.

“Yeah. I’m sure. It’s got the plastic pallor of the CPR dummies.” Laken walked up behind Lydia and shined the light on the dummy’s face for her.

Lydia let out an irritated huff.

“Are you kidding me? Lydia, what the hell are you doing.” She sighed to herself.

“Besides. I think we have a bigger issue than the sanitation issues that arise from someone leaving a CPR dummy in a pool.” Laken shined the light onto the lifeguard station. “Like you just put your hands in blood.”

Lydia looked down at her hands, then the puddle that she was kneeling in, then her eyes followed the light of Laken’s flashlight to the lifeguard chair.

“If you ask me, I think you’re going to need to buy more than just one bottle Ibuprofen.” Laken tried to sound light as she pushed down the queasy feeling and put one hand to her forehead and rubbed. “I’m getting a migraine again.”

Lydia let out a shrill scream, finally having taken in the full grotesque glory of the boy in the chair. Laken lowered the flashlight, clicking it off, and shut her eyes, it was going to take weeks to forget this.

Laken took a deep breath through her nose, “the blood’s dark, so going off oxidation rates he’s been here for a little while, it’s mostly still dark red.  Probably bled out judging by how much of it there is.” She rattled off the facts to Lydia even though Lydia wasn’t completely listening to her.

She let out a shaky breath. “Lydia can we get out of here.”

Taking Laken’s arm, Lydia shook her head and guided her out into the parking lot.

“I … I have to call the cops, and I have to call Stiles.”

“Because his dad’s the sheriff?” Laken leaned against the hood of her car.

Lydia took a breath and nodded with wide eyed. The expression alone made it hard for anyone to possibly believe that was the end of that.

“Um. Stay right here. I’m going to go take a few pictures of it and send them to him too.”

“How about I just call him? While you do… that.” Laken grimaced and nodded at the gates to the pool.

Lydia hemmed and hawed for a second before nodded and scurrying off to photograph the dead body.

Sucking on her teeth, Laken drew a deep breath and pulled out her phone to scroll for Stiles’ number. She tapped on the name and put the phone to her ear after the dial tone started.

“Hello? Lake?” Stiles sounded out of breath. “What’s up? Is… uh… is everything alright?”

“So. This is probably the strangest phone call I’ve ever made. And I’ve made some weird ones before. But, Lydia’s found a dead body?”

“What?!”

Laken pulled the phone away from her ear and Lydia’s head shot up to look back at her.

“Yeah, no need to shout. Phone’s have very good speakers these days.”

“Where?” Stiles said quieter. “How?”

“We’re at the pool? Um. Beacon Hills Public Pool. Lydia said she’s going to text you some pictures? Anyway, um, we were going to the store. You know. Lydia’s out of ibuprofen so I said I’d come along,  and she pulled into this parking lot and I’m not even sure she realized it. But yeah. There’s a body. I mean, I definitely saw it first. Lydia thought the CPR dummy was a dead body, and she did drive us here so technically she found this guy.  There’s blood everywhere. Straight horror movie scene. He looks pretty gnarly. I’m getting a migraine just thinking about it. Honestly, I don’t even want to think about the nightmares that will stem from this.”

“Say no more. I’m on my way.” Stiles hung up the phone without even a ‘goodbye.’

“I called 9-1-1 while you were on the phone with Stiles.” Lydia spoke softly, tapping her phone nervously against her palm. She leaned up against the car next to Laken, shoulder to shoulder. “I’m sorry. This town. It’s not always like this. Sometimes, it’s like everything bad happens over the course of a month or two and then everything’s fine and dandy for the rest of the semester.”

“Deer, birds, bodies.” Laken chuckled humorlessly, “are you sure I’m not the bad luck magnet?”

“Oh no. It’s the town.”

They shared a light laugh as light flooded the parking lot behind them. Laken watched as Stiles’ jeep flew around the parking lot into the spot next to them with a screech and jumped out as soon as the engine was cut.

“Lydia? Lake!” Stiles hurried around his jeep to them.

Lydia gave him a small smile.

“We’re okay. That. That over there.” Lydia pointed at the visible corner of the lifeguard stand, “not okay.”

Stiles hesitated, he half turned to go to investigate, half turning to the pair in concern.

“Lake?”

“Fine.” Laken nodded, eyelids drooping slightly.

Stiles quickly walked over to the stand, balked at the sight, and walked back over to them.

“I’m calling my dad.”

“I already called 9-1-1.” “She already called 9-1-1.” The sisters said in unison.

“Okay. One, don’t do that. It reminds me of _The Shining_. TWO.” Stiles pointed a finger at Lydia, “you called _the police_ before you called me?”

“Technically I called you while she was calling the police.” Laken said dryly. “but schematics.”

“I’m supposed to call you first when I find a dead body?”

“Yes!” Stiles exclaimed loudly and suddenly making both girls jump.

In his hand, Stiles’ phone started vibrating. Scott’s name flashing on the screen.

Laken yawned and rested her head on Lydia’s shoulder, watching Stiles answer the phone and walk back through the gate to look at the body and probably detail it to Scott.

“I’m never going to complain about a boring school day again. I did today and look what happened.  A dead body. Now we’re going to be here all night.”

Lydia laughed as she hugged herself tighter against the wind.

“I think I have a beach towel in the trunk? Or an old hoodie if you want it.”

Lydia shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”

“Suit yourself.” Laken huddled into her own hoodie, gripping the cold metal of her keys in the pouch pocket. She watched Stiles pacing back and forth. “Think it’s warmer with the walls blocking the wind?”

Lydia smiled and grabbed Laken’s elbow, dragging her back into the pool area. The wind was blocked by the walls.

“It’s like the frickin’ Shining over here.” Stiles was saying. “If two little girls walked out and asked me to come play with them forever and ever I seriously would not be surprised.”

Laken smirked and caught Lydia’s eye. “Should we?”

“You do it.” Lydia nudged Laken’s ribs.

“Make sure?! Who else is ripping out throats around here?”

The pair watched Stiles pace around, throwing his hands in the air every now and then.

“Jesus.” Laken muttered to herself.

“Huh…” Stiles leaned in closer to the dangling hand.

“Hey Stiles.” Laken called.

“Huh?” he turned to face the girls.

Laken put on what she thought was her best imitation of _The Shining_ and repeated Stiles’ words, “Come play with us, come play with us forever and ever and ever?”

Stiles went bug eyed. “Ye – NO. Don’t do that.”

Laken giggled into Lydia’s shoulder. “I am so going to hell in a hand basket for making jokes right now… ow.”

“Head?”

“Mhmm.”

“Close your eyes.”

“If I do that I’ll just end up with that body embedded in my memory.”

They let Stiles do his thing for a little while longer. Laken was over it before Lydia was. She pulled her keys from her pocket, flashed them at Lydia so she knew where her sister was going, and went sit in her car.  Laken curled up in the passenger seat and took nap.

She woke up groggy to red and blue flashing lights, chasing wisps of a dream about a forest.


	11. But You Live Down The Block

A deputy took down her statement after finishing with Lydia’s and Stiles’ and dismissed them with a police escort when it was clear that they were telling the truth.

The ride was silent for the most part. Every now and then Lydia would glance in a mirror and sigh when she would spot Stiles’ powder blue jeep flowing closely.

Laken was already planning on locking herself in the bathroom and having a good cry in the shower, some night time yoga, anything to clear her mind and push the images of that dead boy out of her mind.

“You okay?” Lydia whispered.

Laken barely registered that they were turning onto their street. Stiles and the police escort following closely behind. The lights hurt her eyes.

“Yeah.” Laken’s voice sounded hollow and foreign.

“Are you in shock?”

“I don’t know. I’m just tired. It’s hard to process everything right now.”

Lydia let it drop, pulling into the driveway.

Out of the car a police officer walked them to the door. Stiles treading on his heels.

“Stiles.” The officer grumbled after the third time he was tripped up.

“Sorry!” Stiles held up his hands and took a generous two steps back.

“Have a good night, ladies.” The officer nodded at them and backed away as soon as Lydia swung open the front door, nearly backing into Stiles. He glared at Stiles and stalked back to his cruiser.

Stiles didn’t say anything, but followed Lydia and Laken into the house, double checked that the door was locked after Lydia locked it, and followed them up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, Laken parted from them without much notice. She quietly walked to her own room alone. Stiles followed Lydia into hers.

Laken left the lights off and blindly stumbled into the bathroom and removed her glasses. She found a washcloth and wet it with cold water.  Holding it over her eyes, Laken made her way to her bed, stepping out of her shoes as she moved. Somehow she made it and managed to lay flat on her back in the midst of a pile of pillows and not on top of her laptop.

“Hey.” Stiles’ voice came from the door.

Laken lifted her hand in acknowledgement.

“I’m leaving. I just…wanted to make sure you both got in okay.”

“Mhmm” Laken hummed. She spoke half-heartedly, “we’re tough girls.”

“No, yeah. I know you are.” Stiles shook his head. “I’m… I’m just going to go.”

“Be careful.” Laken sat up, moving the hand towel from her eyes and squinting at him. “The killer could still be out there.”

“Yeah, yeah. I – I will be.”

Laken nodded and replaced the towel over her eyes as she laid back down.

 ~~

She stayed in bed the next day. Lydia lounged around with her watching movies and insisting on going through every beauty remedy for puffy eyes.

“I think  I’m going to do cross-country. Or at least give it a shot.” Her head lay in Lydia’s lap as she ran her fingers through Laken’s hair.

“Really?”

“Mhmm. Danny mentioned it.”

“It would look good on college applications.” Lydia agreed, braiding a small section of Laken’s hair.

“It would be something to do. Good for stress.”

Lydia hummed in agreement again.

“Want to come?”

“God no.” Lydia didn’t even try to offer up an excuse. “I do not run unless something is chasing me.”

“Where’s you mom? I don’t think I’ve seen her in a while.”

“Who knows.”  Lydia rolled her eyes. “She’s job hunting, I think. Or meeting with Dad’s lawyers. She’s always meeting with them.”

Natalie Martin wasn’t around nearly as much as Penny was for Laken. They always ate dinner together, joked over baking or washing a car, they went grocery shopping together. Yes her mom hovered a little, but now that she wasn’t there to hover, Laken missed it. Now if you were hungry, you ate whatever you could find whenever. Lydia was almost completely independent from her mother in every way.

“Do you think they’ll find my mom?”

“I hope so. But…” Lydia paused to choose her words carefully, “if they do find her, I’m not sure that you’d go back to her. I think Dad would fight that you stay out here, even if he has no interest in seeing us most of the time. I think mom would fight it too. And I’m not sure that anyone would want to see you shuttled back over there only to find your way out here again.”

“I think I would want to stay here too. I just want to know why.”

“I think we all do.”

“Seeing that body.” Laken sat up and wet her lips. “It reminded me of my dad. Seeing him. I can’t help but wonder if my mom’s … you know…”

Lydia frowned. “If she is… you still have me. You’ll always have me.”


	12. So You Can Keep Her Safe

_Time never had a chance to heal your heart  
_ _Just a number always counting down to a new start  
_ _If you always knew the truth  
_ _Then the world would spin around you  
_ _Are you dizzy yet?_  
~ Jimmy Eat World, "[Dizzy](https://youtu.be/FBjm7DmJ9lI)"

* * *

 

Laken laced up a pair of bright blue and pink Nike shoes, and stuffed her grey Vans into her locker.

The locker room had only a handful of girls, mostly from the soccer team, three from Varsity volleyball, and one from the softball team, making 15 girls in all. One of them, the softball player named Macy, already told her that the cross-country team was mostly boy’s lacrosse since Coach Finnstock made it mandatory for them but a few others were on the track and field team and kept it up all year round. She also winked and said that she usually did it for the eye candy.

She adjusted the straps of her sports bra under her wind-tight jacket and fixed the band of her dri-fit leggings on her way out of the locker room. Following the steady stream of boys to the starting line, Laken threw her hair up into a high ponytail and scanned the group for Danny.

Instead she spotted Stiles with his back to her, talking to Scott and a blonde boy she didn’t know.

In a patch of grass, she stretched out.

“You know stretching can actually get you hurt.”

Laken tilted her head up, Danny stood behind her looking down.

“I do.” She held her hand up and let Danny pull her up. “I tired to get Lydia to come.”

Danny scoffed, “Lydia? This is not her thing.”

“I know.” Laken scanned the group for familiar faces. She picked out Lydia’s choice twin with his brother, but no one else that she knew. “Maybe if I mention the twins, Lydia will change her mind?”

Danny grinned, rolling his eyes. “While she’d be tempted,” he shook his head, “she wouldn’t.”

Coach strolled over to the starting line. Danny and Laken made their way over with the rest of the students to line up and wait for the whistle. The few in the front with their toes on the line assumed a slightly hunched position, waiting. Coach scanned the group and blew his whistle, then he promptly started yelling at everyone.

“Pace yourselves!”

Laken ran like she had never ran before. She ran for her mother, for her pain, for the boy who bled out at the pool, for her dad – both of them.  As she pushed herself harder she felt  all of the stress and anger that had been building up inside of her dissipate. Slowing down as the brush and tree roots took over the edges of the path making it harder to run with reckless abandon.

Laken jogged up behind Macy, not registering why the girl had gone still with fright.  Macy let out a shrill scream as Laken tapped her shoulder.

“Oh shit.” Laken’s gaze followed Macy’s to the body hanging from the tree.

The following minutes were chaotic as the rest of the runners caught up with them. Danny was one of the first, gently moving Macy and Laken away from the body and yelling for Coach.

The team gathered in a haphazard semi-circle around the body as Coach called the police.  One of the soccer team girls pushed forward, crying hard. Coach wasn’t even trying to keep everyone back, he stayed at the far edge of the clearing. The crying girl was taken to the tree line by her friends and was on her phone talking to someone named Ashley very loudly, while still sobbing.

Laken sat down against a tree and waited to be dismissed form the nightmare of a scene to cry in solitude.

Stiles stumbled from the depths of the crowd, tripping over Laken’s feet.

“Lake! Are you okay?”

“Mhmm.” Laken hummed nodding, lips pressed tightly together as she stared unfocused at the tree in front of her.

“I – okay,” Stiles looked torn for a second, looking between Laken and the direction of the oncoming sirens. He crouched down next to her.  “I can tell that you’re lying to me, but I need to talk to my dad. That guy…”

“He died just like the guy at the pool. I know.” Laken interrupted him, her eyes flicked briefly to Stiles then back to the tree. “I’m trying to forget it. But two incidents is enough to be wary of a pattern.”

“Y – yes. That’s… that’s true.” Stiles glanced over his shoulder at the oncoming Officers and straightened up. He hurried over to his dad. “Dad! Look… look at this. It’s just like the others.”

“Others?” Laken frowned to herself and pursed her lips.

“I know. Now please, go back to school.” Sheriff Stilinski sighed and looked over his shoulder, “Coach, give us a hand?”

Coach Finnstock pushed himself into the middle of the crowd with glee, “You heard them! Nothing to see here! He was probably just some homeless kid.”

Laken caught Danny’s eye and he shook his head.

“Coach, he was a senior.” Scott said, looking mildly appalled.

“He wasn’t on the team was he?” Coach turned to Scott with a frown. Scott shook his head.

Everyone moved slowly, not quite wanting to leave when it was sure to be all anyone was going to talk about in class.

A blonde girl, who was striding purposefully toward the group, let out a pained cry. She pushed her way through the congestion of bodies that were slowly, very slowly, making their way to the grass field beyond the tree line.

“No! No! God, no. Kyle.”

“So that’s Ashley then.” Laken mused to herself.

“Well their future military wedding’s off.” Macy snarked, eyed Danny’s backside appreciatively, and marched through the tree line toward the school.

Laken and Danny turned together to walk back to the school after they saw Deputy Graeme grab Ashley and another Deputy started herding everyone out like sheep.  Pausing for a moment, Laken let herself wish that Stiles and Scott would appear to walk back with them, but they didn’t.

“So much for a sleepy little town, huh Danny?”

Danny chuckled, “you’d be surprised. Weird is normal here. It’s the people who are sleepy, and a little blind to it..”

“So nobody questions all this weird crap?”

“Not as much as you’d think.” Danny said, shaking his head. “Last year was particularly bad. Mountain lions, rumors of a giant lizard, murders. Cops at school are a regular occurrence now.”

“Maybe this place is actually a hell mouth.” Laken joked; but the uneasiness she felt after she made the comment made her wonder if it was true.

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Danny said as he parted from her to enter the boys locker room.

~~

Allison sat down next to Laken in French 3 and they exchanged exhausted glances.

“Bonjour.” Allison grinned, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Salut.” Laken countered. “Tired?”

“A little.” Allison said, then yawned.

They shared a small laugh.

“How was cross country?”

“Lyd told ya about that?”

“Yeah.” Allison grinned, “she thinks you’ve lost it. But then again she once wore heels for a trek in the woods, so what does she know.”

“Bien sûr.” Laken said lowly, rolling her eyes, and making the corners of Allison’s eyes crinkle with suppressed laughter. “There was a body. So that’s eventful enough to make me regret it.”

Allison nodded, sadly. “Yeah, I heard about that. Two in one week for you, huh?”

Laken hummed in affirmation, “it’s trying.”

Allison yawned again, nodding.

“Allô, classe. Comment allez-vous?” Ms. Morrell swept into the classroom.

There were various jumbled up responses that ranged from ‘bien’ and ‘mal’ and ‘comme si comme ça’ and ‘ça va’ to much more elaborate expressions of exhaustion or sickness.

The class worked on grammar and vocabulary for a new chapter, one with fancy conjugations that Laken and Allison puzzled over together with silent looks of panic while exchanging yawns.

“Alright. We’ll end today with verbal repetitions. Repeat after me.” Ms Morell set down her book and paced down the isles. “Où allez-vous?”

“Où allez-vous?” Laken droned with the rest of the class, mouthing the translation in English to herself. (Where are you going?)

“Je vais chez moi.”

“Je vais chez-moi.” (I am going home)

Ms. Morell paused at Allison’s desk. Allison had fallen asleep, the back of her head to Laken so it looked as if she was just writing intensely. Laken’s eyes widened. Ms. Morell glanced at Laken, silently asking her how long Allison had been sleeping. She shrugged helplessly.

“Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle Argent.” Ms. Morell looked anything but pleased when Allison’s eyes didn’t even flutter.

Laken reached over and tapped Allison’s shoulder, since it didn’t look like Ms. Morell was going to get anywhere standing over Allison menacingly. She jerked upright as if Laken had shocked her.

“Allison? Es-tu fatiguée?”

“Sorry. Désolé” Allison mumbled. She glanced around the room at everyone staring at her and made eye contact with Laken, who mouthed an apology.

The bell rang, breaking the tension that was building between Allison and Ms. Morell and the class. Laken quickly gathered her things and hovered behind Allison.

“Mademoiselle Smith, you may go. Allison will join you shortly.”

Laken opened her mouth to protest but Ms. Morell fixed her with a no-nonsense gaze that made her mouth snap shut. She nodded and gave Allison a reassuring look before fleeing from the room. Knowing that Allison would meet up with her and Lydia at the lockers, Laken headed there.

“Lake.” A hand closed around her upper arm and pulled her backward.

“Scott. Seriously?”

“Are you okay?”

Laken squinted at him and shook her head, disbelievingly. “Once my heart starts beating again I will be. Why? Allison’s the one getting bitched out by Morell for sleeping in class. Or, oh, that’s not what you’re talking about. _Cross-country_? I’m fine.”

“Right.” Scott nodded awkwardly. The boy behind him nodded too. Laken’s eyebrows drew together as she noticed him. “Oh, this is Isaac. Isaac, this is Laken. She’s Lydia’s cousin.”

“Oh. So she’s…” whatever Isaac was about to say was cut off with a hard look from Scott.

“Riiiiiight.” Laken backed away slowly, prying her arm from Scott’s grip. “I’m going over…there.”

Lydia let out a quiet squeal when Laken was close enough. “I have a study date with Aiden tonight.”

“Who?”

“The heterosexual twin.”

Laken stared at her blankly for a second before it clicked. “ _Oh_. Him. Good on you.”

“So can you clear out for the afternoon? Maybe hang out with Stiles or Allison?”

“Yeah okay. I can try but I’m not good at forcing myself on someone. If not I’ll stay in my room and pretend I don’t exist, and I’ll make sure that a house elf doesn’t hover a cake over his head.” Laken rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I’m going to try and steal your guy. He’s not my type anyway.”

Lydia rolled her eyes this time, then grinned impishly. “What is your type?”

“Not a nearly that buff.” Laken said jokingly, winking at Lydia as she cast an exasperated look at Laken.

Lydia opened her mouth to try and drag more descriptors out of Laken, but was cut off by the appearance of Allison.

“Well?” Laken turned to her.

“I have lunch detention with Harris.”

“Ew.” Laken wrinkled her nose. “For sleeping in class? She couldn’t let you off with a warning? This school is hard-core.”

“You fell asleep in class?” Lydia gapped at Allison.

“Yeah.” Allison shrugged, “I don’t know, I was tired and I just… fell asleep.”

“Did you not sleep last night?” Lydia frowned, tone laced with concern. “You stopped texting me around 8. I thought you went take a shower and fell asleep.”

Allison looked uneasy. “I just haven’t been sleeping well.”

“You should get some lavender candles. Aromatherapy.” Laken suggested. “it’s never worked that well for me, but my mom was big on it. Maybe eucalyptus? It has a calming effect, too.”

“Is that the candle you keep burning?”

“No that’s the lotion. The candle’s tea scented.”

Allison sagged into the lockers behind them, grateful for the change in conversation.

“Yeah well, don’t light it tonight. I don’t want that smell wafting down the hallway. He has to be focused on me, not figuring out what that scent is.”

“Right.” Laken teased, “because the only scent you want him to smell is whatever’s on you.”

Lydia grinned, “exactly.”

Laken wrinkled her nose and glanced at Allison who wore a similar expression. Stiles staggered by the girls, clutching his cheek.

“What’s up with him?”

Allison and Lydia shrugged.

Lydia linked arms with Laken and Allison. “Okay, ladies. One more class then lunch. Or in Allison’s case, delinquency.”

“Shut up.” Allison shook her head, biting back a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still not over the season 5 finale! Usually I can kind of tell where things are going to go but that episode threw a lot of curve balls.
> 
> My computer battery has "experienced a permanent failure and needs to be replaced" (to quote the Dell notification) so depending on a few factors, like my computer's willingness to run while plugged in without a responsive battery, updates may slow down.


	13. Washing Dishes In The Evening

“Bye, guys.” Allison waved as she slowly walked backwards away from them.

“Have fun with detention.” Laken smirked.

Allison glowered at her, but the corners of her lips twitched. Lydia, also smirking, waved  at Allison.

“Poor Allison.” Lydia cooed, hooking her arm with Laken’s.

Laken nodded, “hey, I’m going to go stop by my locker. Meet you outside?”

“Sure.” Lydia shrugged and let go of Laken’s arm, students parted as Lydia walked down the hallway.

Laken turned on her heel and made her way to her locker, passing Stiles along the way. He had a concerned look on his face as he stared hard at another boy walking away from him.

“Penny for your thoughts, Stiles?” Laken glanced at Stiles as she opened her locker and shifted through the books.

Stiles jolted like he’d been shocked. “Oh hey, Laken. Uh, it’s nothing. Did... did you know Kyle?”

“Hmm?” Laken peered around the locker door to Stiles, who stood pointing to the locker behind him plastered with photos. She couldn’t connect the boy on the tree with anyone she’d run into around her locker. “No.”

“Right.”

“Are you okay? I saw you run by earlier today holding your face. You run into a door or something?”

“Slapped actually.”

“Oh?”

“Mhmm.” Stiles offered up no further explanation, still scrutinizing the locker.

Laken raised her eyebrow at him, closing her locker. Stiles mumbled a quick bye and hurried off down the hallway. She tilted her head to look at the pictures haphazardly stuck to the locker door, recognizing the blonde girl from earlier and a livelier version of the boy that had been strung up on the tree, and some sort of military insignia, Air Force maybe, Laken wasn’t familiar with it. She took a deep breath and stalked off to find Lydia, suddenly wanting to put as much distance between herself and that locker as possible.

“Lydia! Just listen to me!” Laken followed the sound of Stiles’ voice, ringing out across the courtyard as soon as she had pushed open the door.

“So I was thinking what if the murders come in threes? Ancient societies love things in threes. So first it’s the virgins and then it’s, I don’t know, three people who own little dogs.” Stiles continued with a hint of desperation.

“I own a little dog.” Lydia said haughtily, glaring at Stiles, “I’m not getting rid of my dog.”

“Would  you at least think about getting rid of your dog?” Stiles followed Lydia as she started walking again.

Laken reached out and grabbed into Lydia’s arm as she walked past not noticing her. Stopping the two of them again.

“You know what else comes in threes? Lots of things, actually, like trifold deaths, also ancient stuff.” Laken leaned forward to be seen around Lydia’s shoulder. “And no we’re not getting rid of the dog, that’s a lifelong commitment.”

Lydia smiled as if she had won the argument.

“How long have you been there?” Stiles squinted at Laken.

Laken just shook her head. “Just walked up.”

“By the way you can’t discern a pattern from a single date point. So stop trying.” Lydia glared at Stiles again.

“She’s right.” Laken added, nodding her head at Lydia. “Past performance is not an indicator of future results, either. So while an indication that the situation should be monitored closely, not a cause for direct concern or conclusion.”

Stiles looked between the two, mouth falling open.

“I’m supposed to just wait around for someone else to die? Just sit there waiting for them to die? Watch them wither and die right in front of us?”

“Dramatic much?” Laken held back an grin.

“Wither?” Came Lydia’s reply over Laken’s.

“You know what I mean.” Stiles scoffed. “Die in a hideously awful strangulating, head bashed in, throat cutting way.”

“Shouldn’t your dad be looking into this not you?”

Lydia nodded, crossing her arms. “Maybe it’s not your job. You said it yourself, they were strangled with a garrote. That’s  a human thing to do.”

“I mean, not a very average human thing to do.” Laken added quietly.

“So maybe you should leave the figuring it out part to someone human.”

Stiles frowned, looking between Laken and Lydia, mentally linking their words. “You mean someone like my dad.”

“No, I mean your dad.”

“He is the Sheriff after all, right? What would he think if you put yourself in danger because you were trying to figure this out?”

An unreadable look crossed Stiles’ face.  The bell rang, making Laken sigh.

“There goes our break.”

Lydia shook her head and started off to English, Laken trailing behind her dodging classmates and leaving Stiles behind.

Lydia was lost in the crowd after a gaggle of girls crossed the hall between them.

~~

Laken drummed her nails on her desk, half watching everyone entering the room. Scott ducked into his seat, staring at his phone. But Stiles and Lydia were both no-shows.  The click of heels on the school’s linoleum flooring drew everyone’s eyes to Ms. Blake as she entered the room looking a little frazzled and tired.

“Okay, everyone! I know this is the last class of the day today. To be honest I want to get out of here too and …” Ms. Blake trailed off as she riffled through her bag. She withdrew her hands and tossed them up in resignation. “I think I forgot my point. Just, you know, take your seats.”

The few kids that were still trailing in quickly took their seats. Ms. Blake turned her back and started writing questions on the board that correlated with their current chapter.

Laken tried to ignore the soft clinks and clunks coming from Scott’s direction.

“This looks kinda important.” Scott said, barely concealing his amusement.

Out the corner of her eye, Laken caught the glint of a smile on Scott’s face as he pulled out a shiny mechanical part.

“No idea what this is.” He grinned as he spun part of it with his palm.

Everyone glanced up at Ms. Blake at the sound of an engine roaring.

“Aiden! Wait, don’t!” one of the twins held out his hand to the one Lydia’d claimed. Laken hadn’t heard either of their names before.

Aiden darted out of the room, despite his twin’s warning. Ms. Blake spun on her toes looking offended and surprised that someone had left her class.

The sound of an engine revving up drew the class to their feet. Even Ms. Blake was slowly inching toward the door, not even bothering to tell everyone to stay in their seats. Another revving, this one much closer and louder, had everyone pushing out the classroom door to see the commotion.

In the hallway, Aiden, the one who had rushed out of class so quickly, sat on a motorcycle. He quickly killed the engine as the hallway filled, kids peaking out of classrooms to see the ruckus.

Ms. Blake pushed past Laken, actually shoving her aside, to reach the front of the huddle.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Ms. Blake sighed. “You know this is going to result in suspension? Everyone get back to class! You! You are coming with me to the Principal’s office right now. Class read the next chapter.”

Ms. Blake all but grabbed Aiden by the ear and dragged him off down the hallway.

Laken turned to retreat back into the classroom and nearly ran into Allison.

“Oh hey, there you are. How was detention?” _Where have you been?_ Echoed in Laken’s head, but she didn’t say it.

Allison smiled half-heartedly and shook her head, “not good.”

They made their way to their seats together, heads bent close. No one was actually doing the reading, but they weren’t just leaving either.

“Where’s Lydia?” Allison frowned, looking at her best friend’s empty seat.

“No idea. I was actually hoping you knew. Seems like half the class decided not to show up. Stiles hasn’t appeared either. I figured you three where off somewhere together.”

Allison’s frown deepened. “No I haven’t seen them. I was with Isaac, doing a little, uh, repair left over from detention.”

It unsettled Laken and made her understandably nervous, but Lydia wouldn’t just leave not like her mom had.

Seeming to sense Laken’s unease, Allison shrugged and added, “maybe she had a meeting with Ms. Morell about scholarships or something and forgot to tell us.”

Laken bit off a sliver of skin on her lip while nodded. “Yeah, maybe.”


	14. While You Whistle All The Way

“Want to come with me look for Lydia?” Laken asked Allison as she hoisted her backpack on.

Allison, still putting away her things, looked conflicted but shook her head, “I can’t.”

“Okay.” Laken shrugged, nonplussed by Allison’s hesitation.

“Good luck.” Allison offered Laken a small smile as she shouldered her own bag and followed Isaac out of the classroom.

~~

Running her thumbnail over the now raw skin of her lip, Laken waited, leaning against Lydia’s locker as the crowds cleared. She checked the parking lot but the car was still there. So she hadn’t gone far – unless she had left with Stiles, wherever he was.

After a few torturous minutes, Laken restlessly shifted her weight and heaved herself upright. Pulling her hand away from her lip she decided she was going to feel stupid calling out Lydia’s name in the hallway, but she was going to do it anyway. It was time to go home. Laken stowed away her backpack in the car and started to make her way through the hallways.

“Lydia? Lydia?!” Laken walked down the emptying halls. A few straggling students coming from extracurriculars looked at her judgmentally as she called for her missing sister.

“Lyd!”

“She was in the music room.”

Laken spun around clutching her chest. “Christ. Danny, don’t sneak up on a girl. Why’s she in _there_? She missed English.”

Danny shrugged, “dunno. But she was zoned in on her sketch of a tree. Maybe she wondered in there by mistake and then didn’t want to walk into English late. The band director didn’t show so everyone left, but Lydia might still be in there.”

“Thanks, Danny.”

“Anytime.” Danny waved a hand at her and walked off, humming.

A faint crashing of piano keys reverberated down the hallway. Laken followed the sound, though it never seemed to get any louder, straight to the band room. There Lydia stood, hunched over a piano in the center of the room.

“Thank God.” Laken sighed in relief. “You missed English, and yes, you can copy my notes, not that you’d need to. What’s with this school anyway? Flipping schedules on some days but not with any sort of real pattern that we can rely on. And Aiden got detention, or maybe he got expelled, suspended? I’ve already forgotten what Ms. Blake threatened him with but I think it was suspension. Given how Allison got detention for falling asleep, it’s possible he was expelled. So your study date is probably cancelled.”

Laken ranted, Lydia didn’t listen.

“Anyway.” Laken took a deep breath, “what are you doing in here? Let’s go home. I’ll fill you in on what you missed.”

“We can’t.” Lydia’s voice was light and airy, but there was a something about it that sounded like something straight out of a horror movie.

“W-why not?” Laken sputtered.

Lydia didn’t say anything, she just paced about the room nervously running her fingers through her hair.

“Seriously, Lydia. I – .”

“We’re here!” Stiles came sliding into the doorframe, shoes skidding across the high gloss floors.

“What is going on?!” Laken threw up her hands and resigned herself to one of the many orchestra chairs. “I’ll just wait here for this to be over… whatever this is.”

Lydia locked eyes with the man who followed Stiles into the room at a much more leisurely pace.

“Are you sure?” the man asked her.

“That’s Doctor Deaton.” Stiles added for Laken’s benefit, sitting in the chair next to her.

“Noted.” She nodded, sullenly picking at her nails.

Lydia held out a phone to Dr. Deaton, when he touched the screen the banging piano concerto started up again.  He tapped the screen again to stop the recording.

“Lydia never was good at piano.”

“And you were?” Stiles’ gaze slid to Laken.

She shrugged, “only slightly better than Lydia.”

If Deaton heard the exchanged, he didn’t react. “Can we get a copy of this?”

Lydia nodded, taking the phone back.

Laken winced. “Not sure I’d want a copy of that.”

Stiles shook his head and got up, pacing the length of the room and riffling through the teacher’s abandoned desk.

“Doc, any help you be very… you know…helpful.”

“Can I help?”

“Do you know what we’re looking for?” Stiles retorted.

“No.”

“Just stay there.” Doctor Deaton said not unkindly, as he held up a hand to stop Laken from getting up.

Deaton’s voice was low as he talked to Stiles and Lydia, huddled around the desk. But Stiles… Stiles’ voice carried.

“Wait. Warriors? Could that be like a soldier?”

Whatever Deaton responded with was accompanied with a nod.  Stiles, wide eyed, turned a photo in Deaton’s direction. Laken could just make it out from where she sat, any further and it would have been a blurry edged blob. A military wedding photo.

“Kyle was in Junior ROTC with Boyd.”

“Home by now, I’ll call him.” Stiles pulled out his phone, scrolling through his contacts for Boyd’s number.

Lydia glanced at Laken and frowned, so did Laken.

“Lydia? Something wrong?” this time Deaton’s voice rang clear and calm across the room.

 “No, I was… I mean… I just thought of someone else with a military connection.” Lydia stumbled over her words, eyes drifting back to Laken.

“Harris?” Laken mouthed to Lydia. Lydia nodded. Then shook her head as she turned to Deaton. The pair had discussed why Harris was such a hard-ass over the summer, leading Lydia to saying he had the West Point Honor Code on his desk, just like Laken’s own father had on his desk, and always in his wallet as a memory to his father.  But that man was nothing like Harris, he was warm and kind, strict, but caring in a way Harris didn’t seem to be capable of.

Stiles lowered his phone, obviously not going through with the call. “Who?”

“Well, you should know.” Lydia said to him.

“Me?”

“It’s been there on his desk the whole time.”

“Lydia, what?” Stiles stammered, shaking his head in confusion. “What’s been there?”

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen it.”

“What? Seen what?”

“The West Point honor code. It’s been sitting right on his desk.”

“WHO!?”

“Harris.” Laken said softly. “It’s on Mr. Harris’ desk.”

“Harris has a military connection.” Lydia looked at Laken sadly. _And Laken_ hung unspoken in the air between them, but Lydia didn’t say it because it didn’t matter – not anymore. It only hurt to remember.

If Laken had given into impulse, she’d be sitting at the piano playing the two notes from _Jaws_ that everyone knew. The situation felt like it needed _Jaws_ music.

“Where is he?” Stiles ran his fingers through his hair. It stuck up in all directions and he didn’t bother smoothing it down, it was as if he still wasn’t used to it’s length. “Is he still here?”

“Harris always stays late.” Lydia sighed. “You should know that better than anyone.”

“Well, let’s go!” Stiles started ushering Lydia and Deaton toward the door, then turned on his heels and grabbed Laken’s shoulder, hurrying her out of the desk to join Lydia.

Stiles took off at a pace that Laken would describe as speed walking, then abruptly turned around about twenty paces in front of them and started complaining about how slow they were being.

“Come on! Someone could be dying.”

“Stiles, don’t you hate Harris?” Laken raised her eyebrows at him.

“Yes, Lake! He’s a horrible person! But… deaths.” Stiles said dramatically flapping his arms around. “Don’t you want to stop deaths?!”

“Honestly, I just want to go home. Maybe bake a cake. I don’t understand what’s up with you guys, but I do understand that I’m tired of being at school, and I’m hungry.”

Stiles’ shoulders sagged as he sighed just as dramatically, “just get into the room.”

“Fine. I guess I’ll just do some homework while you three play Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.” Laken grumbled as she skirted around Stiles into Mr. Harris’ classroom. She then took a seat as far away from the teachers desk as she could, eyeing the West Point Honor Code as she went.

Obviously, Harris wasn’t in the room. Stiles shifted his weight restlessly as Deaton studied the Code on the plaque that sat front and center on Harris’ desk.

“All right, this is just one of many possibilities.” Deaton’s voice rang out steady and calm. “He could have simply left for the day.”

Laken let out a ‘hrmp’ sound from behind her book.

“Not without this.” Stiles lifted up Mr. Harris’ briefcase, Harris was never without it. Stiles shuffled around some papers, then stilled.

“What?”

“This test is graded R” Stiles said, confused.

“This one’s H.” Lydia sounded just as confused, and then Laken lost interest in where this was going again. As drab as their current reading assignment was in English, it was better than trying to figure out Harris’ grading system.

“Lake!”

“Hmm.” Laken looked up. Lydia stood over her, hands on her hips, foot tapping impatiently.

“I said, let’s go. We’re done here.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” Laken snapped her book shut. “I was about to cry tears of boredom, I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the summary essay.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to make it through that thing either.” Stiles said, coming up behind Lydia. “Maybe we should work on it together.”

“Well I’m already done with mine.” Lydia shrugged, “But if you need help…”

“And feel like we’re less articulate than you with your systematic breakdown and scientific explanations? No thanks.” Laken scoffed, shouldering her purse. “You’re welcome to come over sometime this weekend, Stiles. Maybe we can manage to bored Ms. Blake into never assigning summary essays again.”


	15. HEY!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because Frayed is annoying with all the flashbacks and because I thought there needed to be an extra day in the timeline.

_If this is a rom-com_  
 _Kill the director_  
 _If this is a rom-com_  
 _Kill the director, please_  
 _This is no Bridget Jones_  
 _This is no Bridget Jones_  
~The Wombats, “[Kill The Director](https://youtu.be/pVssCPuEzbM)”

* * *

 

Laken sat in the middle of her bed with a pint of pistachio almond ice cream, wrapped up in her duvet. Her laptop sat open tilted upward against her knees as she idly typed out her paper for Ms Blake’s class. The softness of the duvet pressed into her back as she fell back and closed her eyes.

“Hey.”

Laken opened one eye, peaking at the doorway. Stiles stood silhouetted by the brighter lighting of the hallway.

“Hi.” She forced herself to sit up.

“How’s that paper going?” Stiles made his way to her desk, setting down his backpack and sitting in the roller chair, spinning it in a slow circle.

“Dismally.”

The house was so silent, they could hear the click of Prada’s nails on the hardwood floors downstairs, then on the tile of the kitchen.

“Help me with mine?” Stiles grinned. He didn’t wait for a response, “you’re going with us to the meet tomorrow, right?”

“Mhmm.” Laken hummed, mouthful of green ice cream. She pointed at her duffle bag with the clean spoon. “All packed and ready to go. You?”

“I’m not excited about it, every time I manage to disappoint Coach.”

Laken snorted. “I think Finnstock’s default is disappointed.”

“I think you might be right.” Stiles fidgeted in his seat, then blurted out, “I asked my dad if he heard anything about your mom. He hasn’t though.”

Laken stuck her spoon into the softening ice cream and frowned. “It’s okay. I’m not… I mean I am holding on to hope, that’ll always be there, hope that she’ll come back. But I’ve… accepted it. Just like I’ve accepted that I have no room to worry or wonder about what’s going on in this town.”

“Sorry about that.” Stiles said, scratching the back of his neck.

“What do you have to be sorry about? Are you going out and committing horrifying murders? No offense but I really don’t think you would. Maybe a self-defense type thing, but not a malicious intent type thing.”

Stiles grinned. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“So, why does this Be A Better Scott McCall program not include hanging out with his best friend?”

That made Stiles snort as he pulled out his paper. “It’s not that it doesn’t, it just means he’s spread out a little more than usual. He’s trying to be aware of so many things. Want to read mine and I’ll read yours?”

“Yeah sure.” Laken nodded and pushed her laptop to Stiles. He rolled the desk chair up to the edge of her bed and dropped his stack of papers, then took her laptop. “Got a pen or a pencil? Or should I just write all my notes in a telepathic signature?”

“Oh, yeah, here.” Stiles tossed her a red pen.

A couple of minutes passed in silence. Stiles typing every now and then, Laken scribbling out suggestions in the margins of Stiles’ paper.

“Do you think Harris is dead?”

“What?” Stiles’ back went rigid as he slowly looked over to where Laken sat in her bed.

“I mean, you said that you wanted to stop deaths, at school yesterday. Do you think he’s dead?”

“Oh.” He turned away from the laptop completely. “I don’t know. I think he might be. Definitely missing. Presumably dead.  With all the… murders lately…” Stiles trailed off.

Laken nodded. “Outlook is grim.”

“Do me a favor.” Stiles started.

“I already am. This paper is good but it needs a lot of work, your sentence structure is awful.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “I’m serious! You and Lydia, you two need to be careful. Who knows who they’re going to go after next.”

“Right because you suspect that teenage girls are the next target? Now that they’ve gone after little dog owners and people with connections to the military.”

“You don’t know who they’re going to go after. Didn’t you say past performance is not an indicator of future results? And Lydia said that you can’t figure out a pattern from a few data points?”

“Well yes, but I think it’s highly unlikely that they’re going to go after me or Lydia.”

Stiles groaned and covered his face with his hands, his voice muffled. “Just promise me you and Lydia’ll be careful.”

“Yes okay, fine.” Laken said, laughing. “Constant vigilance! I promise.”

Stiles snorted from behind his hands.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve talked much to Scott, aside from Lydia’s party.”

“He’s a busy guy.” Stiles shrugged.

“So you’ve said.”

“Any idea where Lydia’s been or where she was headed today?” Stiles said, conversationally.

Laken shrugged, “she’s been around with that Aiden guy. But she’s probably at Allison’s now.”

“She was leaving when I got here, let me in and left.”

“I wouldn’t know. Last time I asked what she was up to I got a lecture on thermodynamics and quantum physics. Because that is what she was up to.”


	16. Do It For The Way It Makes Your Heart Beat

“Okay so what time are you guys leaving again?” Lydia asked for the fifth time as she pulled into the school parking lot to drop Laken off.

“We should be on the road by nine, _mom_.” Laken groaned.

“Brat.” Lydia quipped. But she looked nervous. “Okay well I’m going to Allison’s so call if you need anything, but I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“You were with Allison all day yesterday and today too? Don’t you two get tired of each other? If I were Allison and I had to spend that much time with you right now, I’d cry. Like, I love you Lyd, but…”

“Love you too.” Lydia said dryly. “Here I am, giving you a ride, being a kind and caring sister.”

“I know.” Laken grinned, clambering out of the car. “And I love you for it! Have fun with Allison!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lydia grumbled, waving Laken off.

Once Lydia had driven off, Laken checked in with Coach Finnstock so he could mark her off on his clipboard. She waved at Macy across the parking lot.

“Alright! Everyone on the bus! And don’t think you can sneak off to your cars and leave. I see you, Greenburg!” Coach yelled, grabbing Greenburg by the ear and throwing him at the bus.

Laken settled herself in at the back of the bus ready to spend the trip relaxing. Maybe a nap, too. She wasn’t much of a napper but last night’s dreams, of tree stumps and fireballs, kept her from getting much sleep.

Stiles’ jeep careened into the parking lot on two wheels minutes before the bus was due to leave.  Stiles hurried to the bus with a sweaty, pale Scott trailing behind him. The two were briefly yelled at by Coach before he let them get on the bus and went to yell at another kid who looked like he was throwing up in a trash can.

Stiles ushered Scott to the back of the bus and the pair took the seat across the isle from Laken. She yawned and stretched out across her seat, mumbling a quiet greeting to them. Stiles nodded absentmindedly and Scott gave her a weak wave and a tired smile as he slid into the seat.

“Take a seat, Jared!” Coach’s voice thundered through the small bus as he pushed the boy, who had been bent over the trash can in the parking lot, to a seat.

“But, Coach.” Jared stammered, looking a little green.

“No! Seat! Now!” Finnstock blew his whistle in the kid’s face.

Jared sunk into a seat by himself and Coach stood up at the front of the bus.

“Okay, you little hooligans, I expect you all to behave. This isn’t a field trip with your nancy-pantsy English teachers or your ‘ _learning is fun’_ History class. This is a track meet for cross-country. So behave your hormonal little selves and we’ll all get along fine! Got that?!”

There was a smattering of mumbled “yes, Coach”s that seemed to satisfy Finnstock.

“Do well and I’ll make sure you get extra credit.”

He clapped the bus driver on the shoulder and after a long hard side-eye from the bus driver directed at Coach Finnstock, they slowly pulled out of the school parking lot.

~~

They were hardly on the road for half an hour when the thunder started in the distance. The first time it rumbled through the sky there was a collective groan from the occupants of the bus. The second time, a few less groans, by the fifteenth everyone had moved on to ignoring it and waiting impatiently for it to start actually raining. Plus they were stuck in traffic. Coach Finnstock was vehemently against pulling over so everyone could eat lunch, so they ate on the bus, and thanks to Greenburg’s “power meal” the bus now smelled like raw fish.

After an unsuccessful nap thanks to Coach Finnstock’s persistent whistle blowing, Laken busied herself by going over a list of French vocabulary words for their test on Wednesday. Across the isle, Scott and Stiles were studying for the upcoming PSATs.

Scott groaned as the bus hit another pot hole. He and Stiles shared a quiet but aggressive conversation. Words like “carnage” and “massacre” were hissed out with just enough volume for Laken to hear.

“Is he okay?” Laken leaned across the isle to whisper to Stiles.

Stiles leaned over too. “Uh, yeah he’s fine. Just not feeling that well. You know. Stomach bug.”

“Should he even be here then?”

Stiles looked at Scott, then back to Laken, “probably not.”

Scott was breathing hard through obvious pain.

“He doesn’t look too healthy.” Laken’s brow scrunched in concern.

“Uh. He’ll be fine. I’m, uh, I’m going to get Coach to stop the bus.” Stiles started to stand.

Scott’s hand reached out to stop Stiles. “No, I’m all right.”

“Scott, you look like shit on a hot day.”

“Yeah. You don’t look all right.” Stiles said, throwing a ludicrous look Laken’s way.

“I’ll be fine by the time we get to the meet.” Scott insisted, locking eyes with each of them in turn.

“I have pain killers and antacids if you need.” Laken offered.

“I’m fine.” Scott waved her off calmly.

“Let me take a look at it.” Stiles turned his back to the isle, talking to Scott softly.

“I’m okay.” Scott muttered again.

“If you’re okay, then stop being so intransigent and let me see it.” Stiles grumbled. 

Laken leaned back in her seat, whatever it was she couldn’t see around Stiles’ shoulders enough to be nosey.

“Dude.” Stiles whispered.

“I know it looks bad.” Scott’s voice was light and pained and the rest of his sentence got even softer.

Whatever Stiles said back had them both whip their heads up to the front, Laken glanced at them then followed their gaze up to where curly haired Isaac sat, next to someone who looked like they’d be more at home on a soccer field than a cross-country meet. Glancing back at Scott and Stiles, who’s heads where bent close together again, Laken curled up in her seat. Sinking lower into the fake leather and pressing her knees into the back of the seat in front of her.

Coach’s whistle screamed shrilly again. Laken winced that time, the noise was starting to cause a headache.

“The two of you! Back to your seats! And Jared, honestly, car sick every time? Every time?”

Jared let out a loud groan somewhere in the middle of the bus.

“Keep your eyes on the horizon! McCall! You too?” Coach sounded completely exasperated with the entire bus, as he stalked down the isle closer to the back seats.

“No Coach, I’m good.” Scott certainly didn’t sound good.

Stiles returned to quietly arguing one-sidedly with Scott. Laken tried to tune it all out and minimize her headache by closing her eyes.

“Where are you going?”

Laken opened one eye to watch. Across the isle Scott was standing, and sweating, trying to step over Stiles. She closed her eyes again.

The seat bounced next to her. Laken forced her eyes open again.

“Hey how are you?” Stiles grinned widely.

Laken let out a tired groan in response. “I wish Coach would stop with the whistle.”

“Me too.” Stiles nodded. “Hey, so. Any idea why Lydia and Allison are following the bus?”

“They are?” Laken twisted in the seat, trying to see over the mound of gym backs piled in the back space. She couldn’t make out Allison or Lydia’s cars in the sea of cars behind them, but intuition told her they were there somewhere.

“So no clue?”

“Nope.”

“Okay. See ya.” Stiles slid back into his seat after Scott sat down again.

Laken returned to her position in the bench seat and sent a quick text to Lydia asking her what she was up to. Baiting her, yes, but she was curious if Lydia would actually say anything. She got nothing in response.

Another roll of thunder and another blow of Coach’s whistle. Someone’s cellphone kept trilling incessantly further up in the bus. Scott and Stiles jolted in their seat.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Laken glanced at the two trying to hide in their seat.

“Uh, we’re…” Stiles stammered, his phone pinged in his hand.

“Whatever.” She shook her head, it wasn’t worth it.

“Jared, I’m warning you!” Again with the whistle. “I’m an empathetic vomiter. You throw up and I’ll throw up right back on you.”

“Gross.” Laken whispered. Stiles made a face in agreement.

“It will be profoundly disgusting!”

Jared stammered out a reply.

Coach pointed at everyone else, eyes scanning the rest of the bus. “None of you start thinking we’re going to miss this meet! A little traffic and a minor tornado warning won’t stop us.”

“T-tornado?” Laken’s eyes went wide with fear.

Stiles stood up, with a quick glance at a very pale Scott, and stared down the isle to talk to Coach.

“Stilinski what the hell are you doing in the isle?” Coach barked, reaching for his whistle.

Laken cringed and braced herself for the shrill sound.

“There’s a food stop half an mile up, we should stop, stretch our legs! Maybe traffic will lighten up by the time…”

Stiles was cut off by the shrill trilling of the whistle. Laken cringed as her head throbbed.

“We’re not stopping.”

“But if we stop…”

Another trill of the whistle.

“Coach.”

Whistle.

“But…”

Another shrill note.

“I…”

And again. Laken’s head was throbbing and she was fed up with being on the bus herself. Stiles was getting no where with Coach.

“I’m calling Allison and Lydia.”

“Why?” Scott’s head cocked to the side. “They’re all the way back in Beacon Hills.”

“They’re not.” Laken sighed.

Stiles pulled out his phone.

“They’ve been following us for hours. Pathetic.” Stiles scoffed, moving his phone to his ear. “I know you’re right behind us, put me on speaker. Scott’s still hurt.” His voice dropped to a whisper as he turned toward Scott. Laken tried to listen, seeing if she could pick up why Lydia and Allison were following them but she couldn’t make sense of anything. As he turned away from Scott his voice became clearer again. “I’ve been trying. Have you met the guy?”

He pocketed his phone and sighed. “I’m going to try again.”

Stiles walked up the isle to Coach again. Finnstock raised his eyebrows at Stiles, silently daring him to proceed with whatever he was daring to do.

“It’s five minutes for a bathroom break. We’ve been stuck in this thing for hours…”

The whistle trilled sharply. Laken and Scott shared a pained look.

“The next rest stop isn’t for another sixty miles…”

Another sharp burst.

“This is false imprisonment.” Now Stiles was just grasping for straws.

Coach just blew his whistle right in Stiles’ face.

“Coach.”

Coach leaned in closer to Stiles’ face and blew again.

“Just…”

This time he blew the whistle louder.

“OKAY!”

Stiles came back to his seat fuming and muttering under his breath. Laken sighed and sat up straighter, pushing away her headache for the moment. The bus was getting hot and uncomfortable for everyone.

“Stiles give me your hoodie.”

“What?”

She held out her hand impatiently till Stiles begrudgingly slid off his hoodie and handed it to her.

“Why do you need…”

He trailed off as Laken stood up and wrapped the arms of the jacket around her waist.

“Don’t send a boy, when a lady gets it done.” She patted Stiles on the head and strutted down the isle toward Coach Finnstock.

Coach’s head slowly turned to her when she stopped at his shoulder. “Miss Smith, I just told your little friend we’re not stopping. Now return to your seat.”

“See, I get that Coach, but we have a little problem. It’s an emergency.” Laken winced as if in pain and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“What kind of emergency?” Coach Finnstock eyed her warily.

“Well, I don’t really feel comfortable saying this, what with a bus full of mostly guys, and you yourself being part of the male population…” Laken trailed off letting the words sink in and Coach’s face start to drain of color, “but it’s a lady issue. And I’m afraid that if we don’t stop I might bleed…”

“ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT!” Coach cut her off, looking a little green. “go back to your seat.” He waved her off and stalked up to the driver.

Laken kept her pain-face till she turned around. She locked eyes with Stiles and a smug smirk spread across her face. Stiles eyes were wide and his mouth hanging open in awe and horror.

“That really works?”

“Most of the time.” Laken smirked, sliding into her seat. “I’ll keep your hoodie for a little while to keep up the charade till Scott’s had a chance to have his throw up and cry.” She caught Coach’s eyes wandering around the back of the bus and dropped her expression into the most pitiful one she could muster. She surreptitiously dug through her bag for medicine. When Coach looked away she leaned over the isle, “You owe me, Stilinski.”

Stiles nodded, eyes still wide.

“I’m going to let Lydia and Allison know.”

Laken nodded, knocking back a pain killer for her headache. Stiles absentmindedly handed her a bottle of water from his bag as he pulled out his phone.

“Hey, yeah. We’re pulling over. No, not me. All Laken. Yeah. Does it matter? Okay. Bye”

Just as the bus started to pull off onto the shoulder to turn off the highway, Jared let out a low moan and showed the whole bus exactly what he had eaten in the past 6 hours.

“JARED!” Coach bellowed. Then he turned to the bus driver, “go faster!”

A couple of kids gagged at the smell and Greenburg started to look a distressing shade of green.

“Keep it together, Greenburg!” Coach snapped.

The occupants of the bus were melting down fast, whining and complaining about the smell. Coach Finnstock was losing whatever calm he had left and the bus driver looked ready to call in his resignation right then and there.


	17. Rage...

_Oh it's been getting so hard_  
 _Livin' with the things you do to me, aha_  
 _Oh my dreams are getting so strange_  
 _I'd like to tell you everything I see_  
 _Oh, I see a man at the back_  
 _As a matter of fact his eyes are red as the sun_  
 _And a girl in the corner let no one ignore her_  
 _'Cause she thinks she's the passionate one_  
~Sweet, "[Ballroom Blitz](https://youtu.be/VzpWJx3I2DY)"

* * *

 

“Somebody get towels! Or a mop!” Finnstock yelled out the window as students poured out of the bus, dramatically gasping at the fresh air.  He looked behind him and winced. “Or a new bus.”

The bus driver glowered at Coach Finnstock and marched off to get paper towels.

Laken hopped off the last step, Stiles and Scott right behind her exiting at a slower pace.

“He looks like he’s about to puke.”

“You’re not helping.” Stiles shot a hard look at Laken.

“Actually I did help. I got Coach to pull the bus over.” Laken sassed.  “And now I’ve got to go to the bathroom or Finnstock will, well I don’t know what he’ll do, but I want to avoid it.”

Laken stalked off to the bathroom, just avoiding running into Lydia and Allison as they hurried over to Stiles and Scott.

~

She stood in the empty bathroom, pressing a wet folded up paper towel to her forehead.

“That bus is a mess.” Macy sang at her, as she entered the bathroom.

“I know.” Laken agreed.

“You have a headache too? At least you’re not sitting _right next to him_. Man, I’m going to have an earache.”

Laken hummed in response.

“Mr. McGuiver finished cleaning out Jared’s puke. So we’re probably leaving soon.”

“The bus driver’s name is Mr. McGuiver?”

“Huh? Oh. No. But, it’s better than calling him Mr. Bus Driver, Sir.” Macy shrugged. She picked at her hair, examining it in the tarnished mirror. “I think Jared got some in my hair. Smell?”

Laken recoiled, “no!”

Macy shrugged and dropped the clump of hair. “I have dry shampoo in my bag, I’ll just spray a little, it’ll be fine.”

Letting Macy lead the way, Laken followed her out of the bathroom just as the rest of the girls made their way toward it. Macy doubled back and went back into the bathroom with them, gossiping about some party they were missing.

“Let’s go! Back to the bus!” Coach hollered across the parking lot. Almost everyone ignored him or pretended they couldn’t hear him.

“Lake! There you are.” Stiles panted, grabbing hold of her shoulders. “You wouldn’t happen to have any idea how to stall Coach? Like maybe round two of your performance earlier?”

“Tell him Scott’s having tummy trouble? Or that he’s puking? Coach won’t want him on the bus if he is.”

“Good idea.” Stiles nodded, looking around for Coach. His gaze stopped short of where Coach stood near the bus, landing instead on the cluster of students sitting on the edges of stone planters. “I might have a good back up.”

Stiles let go of Laken’s shoulders a little too late, making her stumble after him for a few steps before she righted herself. She watched as he stumbled to a stop in front of Isaac, hands flapping as he talked animatedly. Whatever he said made Isaac’s face morph from passive into full rage. Stiles either took no notice or didn’t care as he hurried over to Coach, whistle (nearly raised to his lips) poised to blow, and started flailing around trying to stop him from calling the team back to the bus again. Finnstock shook his head several times.

A loud yell, that sounded almost like a roar, echoed across the parking lot. Laken’s attention snapped from watching Stiles and Coach argue to the source of the sound. Isaac was laying into Ethan, both of their faces mirror images of rage and confusion as they fought.  Coach’s whistle cut through the air shrilly.

“Isaac!” Coach Finnstock got as close to running as anyone had ever seen him, hurrying to disperse the fight. “Isaac! Back off!”

No one paid a limping Scott a second glance as he made his way to the epicenter, arm slung over Allison’s shoulders as she helped him move. But Laken watched as he pushed away from Allison’s shoulder and made his way closer to the fight. Allison hung back watching nervously. Lydia two steps behind.

“Isaac!” Scott roared louder than every other voice.

There was a sudden stilling of everyone in the area, even the birds had stopped cawing. Isaac, frozen with his fist raised, slowly let go of Ethan’s shirt and backed away.

“Okay.” Coach Finnstock nodded slowly at the crowd of students. “Back on the bus then.”

Everyone was slow to move, so Laken made it on the bus first and able to sink lowly into her seat before anyone else had taken to the steps.

She rested her forehead on the cool glass, watching everyone in the haphazard line. From Danny cooing over Ethan’s bruised face to Stiles and Scott standing closely with Lydia and Allison. Laken’s chest tightened with a brief bought of anger at them. Lydia hadn’t sought her out or even said anything to her at all, Allison either. But she didn’t expect Allison to, with Lydia she did.

Stiles peered over the top of the seat at Laken’s curled up form and sent her a small smile before sliding into the seat in front of the one he and Scott had previously shared, after Lydia. Lydia didn’t even glance her way.

Laken pushed down the loneliness that was creeping around in her chest, squeezing her heart and telling her she was forgettable. She pushed down the fear that Lydia would leave her too.  Instead she unwrapped Stiles’ hoodie from her waist and wrapped herself in the warm fleece, and untangled her earbuds so she could separate herself from the bus on her own terms.

The music pumping through the headphones mostly blocked out Coach yelling into his phone and the conversations around her and made it easier for her to focus on something else that wasn’t Allison and Scott making goo-goo eyes at each other or Lydia and Stiles’ heads bent close in quiet conversation.

The seat bounced as someone sat down next to Laken. She lowered the volume and glanced to her left. The annoyance and anxiety evaporated, leaving behind the feeling of exhaustion.

“Hi.”  Stiles grinned.

Laken nodded at him but tilted her face against the window.  Stiles frowned.

“Scott’s feeling better.” He offered up.

“I’m glad.” Laken said lightly.

“You okay?”

“Mhmm” She hummed, turning to face Stiles. “Just tired. We’ve been on this bus for ages.” It wasn’t a lie, but it didn’t sound like the truth either.

Stiles cleared his throat, head nodding rapidly. “Yeah!”

Seeing that Stiles wasn’t going to leave it there, Laken removed her headphones and put them away.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it to the meet.” Laken sighed.

“Nope.” Stiles agreed. “But Coach isn’t going to turn us around now and risk a forfeit.”

“Watch we’ll have to spend the night in the bus.”

Stiles snorted.

Lydia slid into the seat in front of them.


	18. ...And Burst!

“Okay!” Finnstock yelled to get everyone’s attention. When no one moved to look in his direction, he blew his whistle with gusto. A few half asleep students jolted in their seats, Jared even falling into the isle. “Everyone off the bus, stretch your tiny little legs or whatever, but don’t wonder off. I’ll be back in five minutes. I mean it, Greenburg. I will leave your ass here and tell your parents exactly why. Now… OFF!”

Everyone slowly gathered their things and made their way off the bus, after allowing Coach to push his way to the front to get of ahead of everyone else.  Lydia eyed the sputtering florescent sign with unease from the bus window.

“Glen Capri.” Allison read it off quietly, stepping out onto the cracked pavement.

“Might want to text that to someone in case we all die here tonight.” Laken said in a small voice at Allison’s shoulder.

They all stood in front of a rundown motel with blinking neon lights. Laken wrinkled her nose as she took in the place in all it’s decaying glory, she disliked staying in hotels, disliked motels even more.

“I’ve seen worse.” Scott commented, eyeing the dingy motel.

Laken and Stiles exchanged glances with Allison and Lydia, trying to figure out if Scott was being serious.

“Where have you seen worse?” Stiles squinted at Scott.

“Yeah, where have you been traveling?” Laken frowned at him, one eyebrow quirked. “The Underworld?”

She finally slid off Stiles’ hoodie and handed it to him, he took it gratefully and slid it on. Laken almost instantly regretted it, despite coming close to sweating in it, the gnats and other flying things were out in full force and it made her skin crawl without the extra layer to block them.

The sound of Coach Finnstock’s now entirely too familiar whistle cut through the air, louder in the empty space than it had been in the confines of the bus.

Laken winced and leaned close to Lydia’s ear. “Are you sure Aunt Natalie won’t come pick us up if we call and beg?”

Lydia hummed in affirmation, studying the motel.

Laken let out a whine that sounded bratty to anyone who didn’t know better.

“Alright you little hooligans!” Coach yelled.

“Someone buy this guy a megaphone.” Laken groaned under her breath. “No, wait. That’s probably a bad idea. Someone make sure this man never gets one of those.”

Stiles chuckled and pat her shoulder, leaning in close to Laken’s ear. “He had one once.”

Scott nodded. “We had to hide it.”

“I understand why.”

“Listen up! The meet’s been pushed back to tomorrow morning.” A collective groan rose from the crowd. Coach made a sour face and waved them off. “Oh get over it! It’s out of my control! If I had my way we’d be running the meet at midnight! This is the closest motel with the most vacancies…”

“Gee I wonder why.” Stiles breathed.

“…and the least amount of good judgment in accepting a group of degenerates like yourselves. You’ll be pairing up! Choose wisely.”

“Are we going on a mystical quest?” Laken muttered sarcastically. “I call dibs on being the wizard.”

Stiles choked back a laugh. Scott looked amused when he had to thump him on the back.

The group thinned as Coach distributed room keys.

“You and you, fine.” He looked sourly at two boys as he handed them a key. “Scott and Stiles.” Coach made a face, but handed them a key more willingly than the previous two. “Ethan, Danny.” Coach looked between them with a knowing expression and pointed a finger at them, “behave yourselves. Laken, Allison, Lydia.” He placed a key in Laken’s palm, brow furrowed in confusion at Lydia and Allison, probably because he didn’t remember them getting on the bus in the first place. “Allison… Lydia?”

Before Coach could say anything more, Allison pushed on Laken’s shoulders to get her walking. “Thanks, Coach.” She chirped, quickly hurrying away to blend back in with the crowd.

Finnstock yelled after the retreating backs of the team, “And I’ll have no sexual pervasions perpetrated by you deviants! Got that?! Keep your dirty hormonal little hands to your dirty little selves! If not I’ll make sure to give each and every one of you a lecture on the horrors sex on the ride home! We’ll talk about the clap for HOURS!”

Laken and Allison were halfway through the parking lot when they realized Lydia wasn’t with them.

Allison back tracked to where Lydia stood by the bus. “Lydia?”

“I don’t like this place.”

“Me either.” Laken offered up as reassurance. “It looks like the kind of place bad things happen in, but maybe they have really nice bathrooms? Maybe they just put more work in on the inside? Never judge a book by it’s cover? What happened to that ‘Martin’s can take on anything’ attitude?”

Lydia cast an annoyed look at Laken.

Allison shrugged. “I don’t think the people who own this place like it. It’s just for a night.” She shrugged again, plucked the key from Laken’s hand, and started off to the row of rooms

“A lot can happen in a night.” Lydia said to Allison’s back. She pursed her lips.

“Come on.” Laken sighed, taking Lydia’s hand. “Who knows what’s lurking in the shadows out here.”

Lydia didn’t resist Laken’s hold, but moved reluctantly. They quickly caught up with Allison on the stairs, after dodging a giggling Greenburg who was most definitely up to no good.

Allison was paused at their room, 217, key dangling in the lock as she surreptitiously watched Scott standing outside of his own room a few doors over. He caught her eye and gave her a reassuring smile. Laken and Lydia edged past the two as Stiles let out a triumphant sound and pushed the door open. The sisters joined Allison, and she unlocked and stepped into the room with Laken two steps behind her, scrutinizing the room. Lydia stalled just outside the doorframe.

Allison dropped her bag on top of the dresser and turned to Lydia with a sigh. “You’re really freaked out, aren’t you?”

“She’s got the right idea.” Laken quipped, running her finger over the top of the TV in the corner of the room.

Lydia fidgeted in the doorway, “I just have this feeling like coming here wasn’t an accident.”

“What do you mean? Like we were supposed to come here? Like fate?” Allison frowned.

“I don’t know…” Lydia hedged, “something.”

“Fate, kismet, serendipity… coincidence” Laken shrugged. “Funny world we live in.”

Allison’s eyebrows knitted together, but she shook her head and scoffed. She reached for Lydia’s hand and pulled her into the room, letting the door swing shut behind them.

“I don’t believe in fate.”

Lydia looked at Allison sadly. “Well maybe you should start.”

“Looks like there’s only two beds.” Allison clapped her hands together. “Who’s sharing.”

“I’ll share with whoever.” Laken offered, digging through her duffle. “I’m a light sleeper when I’m not in my own bed, and I don’t move around as much. Lydia kicks.”

“Oh trust me, I know.” Allison grinned teasingly at Lydia. “She gave me bruises the last time she slept over before I went to France. My shins where a light blue for a few days after.”

Laken grinned, readily adding her own story. “Last time we shared a bed, she kicked me out of it. I landed on the pile of dolls we had been playing with before we fell asleep. Not only did I sleep horribly on that pile of doll bodies but I had a bunch light bruises and a red mark from her knee in my back.”

“Okay!” Lydia threw her hands up, “I get it! You two share then! But I’m probably not getting much sleep either.”

Allison laughed and grabbed the doorknob to the bathroom. “I’m going to go shower.” She ducked inside, then popped her head out. “Check for the towels, Lydia? There’s none in here.”

Laken pulled a beach towel from her bag and spread it over the bed. No part of her wanted to touch the bed.

“Why do you have a beach towel?” Lydia raised an eyebrow at her, watching as Laken spread the floral towel over half the mattress.

“Because, what if I needed to shower after the meet? Or sit on the grass. You know I hate grass. Or what if the cement is hot? I have sensitive skin.”

“Okay, okay. I get it.” Lydia held up a hand in surrender.

Laken carefully laid on the towel, so that no part of her touched the sheets or the pillows. Unless she rolled over, which was likely given her sleeping patterns, she wouldn’t touch the bed.

“You’re really committing to this?” Lydia commented dryly, watching Laken.

“Do you really think these rooms are clean? Everything smells like smoke, the flickering lights are creepy, and I just have an awful feeling about literally everything about this place.”

“I do too.” Lydia started, “but I’m not sleeping like _that_.”

“Honestly,” Laken sighed as got comfortable, “I’d rather sleep on the bus than in here.”

Lydia hummed in a ‘have it your way’ tone, and sniffed one of the motel towels that bad been folded in one of the drawers of the dresser. She wrinkled her nose and set them back down.

“These towels reek of nicotine.”

Laken pointed to a card affixed to the mirror over Allison’s purse. “It says ‘No-Smoking: This is a smoke free room’ maybe they mixed up the towels.”

“Hey Allison!” Lydia called loudly at the closed bathroom door to be heard over the running shower.

“Yeah?”

“These towels stink! I’m going to see if I can get fresh ones.”

“Okay!”

Lydia turned to Laken, “I’ll be back.”

“’kay.” Laken nodded, closing her eyes. “Be safe.”

Allison called out something from the bathroom, but it was lost to Laken. She hummed an agreement sleepily back, suddenly exhausted from the day. Her body felt heavy and sluggish as she drifted off into sleep. Before Laken drifted off completely, saw Scott silently dart into the bathroom with a dark look in his eyes.

~~~~~~

Scott stood in front of her, surrounded by a haze. There was something off about him, and it wasn’t the bright red of his eyes or the unusual mass of hair on his face, all things that should have been sending red flags. It was something sinister; something in the air around him as he stood facing Laken, snarling. Scott’s face slowly turned more animalistic as dark spots ghosted over his features, giving his face a ghastly blue hue and the dark ring around his blood red irises widened until the whites of his eyes were gone. Then his nose and forehead thickened into a more primal set. Scott snarled again, gnashing his teeth at Laken. Her heart pounded and her body screamed at her to move but she didn’t. She merely twisted out of the way when Scott lunged for her, screaming as he stumbled past her like a bull charging at a matador and fell to the floor. He looked at her with a dazed and sorrowful expression as the darkness melted away along with the masses of hair on his face and slowly the red glow of his eyes faded.  The haze engulfed Scott.

Stiles stepped forward from where Scott had disappeared. He gripped Laken’s shoulders, face tear-streaked with dried blood spattered across it, the entire shoulder of his plaid shirt was ripped and tinted a dark red.  His words were muffled and impossible to understand, like he was talking to her from under water or through thick glass. The urgency disappeared from Stiles’ face and he pointed off to his right. Laken turned her head to see Allison, bleeding out on the ground with a crossbow in her lap. Allison sat up, face scrunched up in pain, she gasped out (and let out a blood curdling scream) then rolled over onto her hands and knees and started dry heaving. A strip of fabric unfurled itself from her mouth and from it rose a figure. It laughed and disappeared in a spiraling swarm of fireflies and moths. Laken tried to run to Allison, but she never got any closer, nor did Stiles ever seem to move from where he stood, pointing, but she was running.

Then there was a gentle tug on her hand. Looking over her shoulder, Laken saw Lydia, smiling softly and turning her away from Stiles and Allison. Lydia let out a scream, not unlike Allison’s, but the force of it knocked Laken backward and into something. Turning Laken saw a large tree stump. Across from her stood a man, raw pink and blackened with soot and embers.  He opened his mouth when his eyes met hers, but all that came out was smoke.  Stiles walked up on one side of her, Lydia on the other. He had a wrench in his hand this time. Lydia held a book to her chest, it’s title was a mess of lines and symbols that Laken didn’t understand. They both smiled at Laken, the same sad, apologetic sort of smile. Looking down Laken found herself holding something, a jar. Empty.  A small fox wove around their legs before jetting off into the fog that clung to the trees around them.

When she looked up again she saw her mother, laid out on top of the stump. Limbs twisted at impossible angles. Laken stumbled forward, choking on a startled squeak. The jar tumbled from her hand and shattered as she dropped to her knees. In the distance someone was calling her name.

~~~~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Motel California has been really rough to write.


	19. When We're All Living Like This

Laken woke up on the floor. Specifically with her torso on the floor. Her feet were still firmly planted on the towel she had laid out. Her body hurt, in the way that her muscles were tense either from falling onto the rough motel carpet or from the nightmares, she wasn’t sure. Her skin was clammy and her hearing muffled.

“Lake!” someone was yelling. “Laken, wake up!” no they weren’t yelling, everything just felt loud.

She slowly sat up, feeling her face for her glasses, miraculously they still sat on her nose. Slowly Stiles came into view as she blinked the sleep away from her eyes.

Stiles crouched down next to her. Behind him, Lydia and Allison were rushing back and forth gathering up their purses.

“Hey, are you okay?” Stiles put his hand gently on Laken’s upper arm. The action jolted her. “Whoa, whoa. It’s okay.”

Laken drew a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay. I think.” Her voice was hoarse as if she had actually been screaming. The dream clung to the forefront of her memory, she had to blink hard to see Stiles without the ghost of blood and tears on his face. “Um, just a nightmare.”

Stiles nodded. Lydia faltered behind him, looking at Laken over his shoulder.

“What…” Laken had to stop to clear her throat, “what’s going on?”

“This motel is majorly creepy.” Lydia said. “We’re actually going to sleep on the bus.”

“Oh.” Laken blinked in confusion.

“We’re not leaving you here all by yourself.” Lydia added, as she checked the contents of her purse.

“Come on.” Stiles said gently. His hand trailed down her arm and grabbed her hand, helping her to her feet. When Laken was standing, he bend over and picked up his own gym bag. “I’m going check on Scott. I’ll meet you guys there.”

It didn’t take long to ensure that they had collected all of their things stowed away in their bags, or for Laken to wrap the beach towel around her shoulders and follow tiredly behind Allison and Lydia to the bus.

The air outside of the motel smelled strongly of gasoline and smoke. Lydia and Allison gave a wide birth to a blackened patch of concert that hadn’t been there when they arrived at the motel.

“What the hell happened?” Laken asked them, but nether of them gave any indication that they heard her or had any intention of answering.

Allison pried open the bus door as they were joined by Isaac and Boyd, gym bags in hand.

Boyd and Isaac stepped on the bus first and went straight to the back seats that Laken, Scott, and Stiles had occupied on the ride out. Allison and Lydia chose seats close to the front but not directly by the doors. Laken stood in the isle.

She wavered a bit, trying to decide where to sit. Ultimately Laken slid into the seat behind Allison and Lydia. Allison nervously shifting around in her seat and didn’t stop until Scott and Stiles were on the bus and the door was shut.  In her seat, Laken wrapped herself in the beach towel and drifted off.

~~~~~

It wasn’t the glaring sun that woke them up the next morning, though it did bring them to the brink of being awake. Instead it was the shrill whistle that seemed to be haunting their dreams.

Laken rubbed her eyes, and then the knot in her shoulders as she sat up. In the seat in front of her, Lydia and Allison were straightening out and stretching their backs. Across the isle, Stiles was rubbing his face and yawning. Only Scott jolted straight up with his hair sticking out at odd angles.

“I don’t want to know!” Finnstock yelled. “I _really don’t_ want to know. But in case you missed the announcement, the meet’s been canceled. We’re headed home” He turned and looked over his shoulder, calling out the door, “pack it in!”

The rest of the team filed onto the bus. Macy paused by Laken’s seat to give her a questionable look.  Danny cast a weird look at them as he passed too. Ethan slid into the seat behind Stiles for a minute, talking lowly to them, before joining Danny further back. The strange looks stopped as more people got on the bus.

Lydia stood up as Coach moved to pass her, “Coach, can I see your whistle for a second?”

Lydia lifted it from his neck before he could hand it to her or walk away.

“I want that back.” He told her sternly as he walked to the back of the bus with his clipboard, ticking names off the roster as he spotted people in their seats.

“Wolfsbane.” Lydia whispered.

Laken wrinkled her nose wondering why in the world Finnstock would have poisonous flowers in his whistle, especially one that could kill him if he ingested it. If it was in his whistle the whole ride, then that would explain her constant headaches after the first few blows.

“We all inhaled it.” Scott was saying when Laken got out of her own head.

“We were all poisoned by it.” Allison said.

“That’s how the Darach got into their heads. That’s how he did it.”

Stiles quickly grabbed the whistle from Lydia’s hand and tossed it out the window as the bus started to pull away from the Motel.

“STILINSKI!” Coach bellowed

“I’ll buy you a new one!” Stiles yelled back.

“You know.” Laken leaned over  Allison and Lydia’s seat, “I have no idea what a Darach is, so I’m going to ignore that right now and assume that’s what people are calling the apparent serial killer we have in Beacon. But poison is typically considered a women’s weapon. Men tend to go more physical methods of killing, such as the strangulation and head bashing that all those people have been killed with. Women go for the kill with poison since more often than not, we tend to lack the physical strength needed to deal the final blow. Historically this is proven, mostly because women did not have the training or access to weapons like swords, but they could pour wine or tea and easily slip something into it.”

“What are you getting at.” Lydia eyed Laken warily. Allison chewed on her lip, watching with worried eyes.

“Well, what I’m saying is that if someone was going to stuff Finnstock’s whistle with a lethal flower like wolfsbane, which by the way if ingested could kill anyone, they’d be risking killing him too. And it would have to be someone who could have gotten close enough to his whistle without him questioning it. And that typically, male serial killers use force, not lethal flowers, to kill. For the record, side effects of wolfsbane range from intestinal distress and cardiovascular failure to headaches, nausea, sweating, and confusion. So I think we found the culprit of my headaches yesterday and possibly Greenburg and Jared’s puking. They were closer to Finnstock when he was on his whistle tirade.”

“We what?” Stiles asked as he slid into the seat next to Laken.

“My headaches. Greenburg and Jared’s nausea. Probably caused by Finnstock’s whistle being packed with wolfsbane.”

“What? Who said that?” Stiles looked panicked.

“Lydia did.” Laken cocked her head in confusion to his wide eyed panic. “I can’t imagine why he’d want us all nauseated and such, so obviously he didn’t do it, he’d risk killing himself if he did. But it can be lethal for anyone to ingest. With a possible serial killer on the loose it’s just eerie to think about.”

“Maybe someone did it as a joke?” Stiles argued.

Allison and Lydia shot him a grateful look and slowly turned to face front and let the two of them argue over it.

“If they did they’d risk a criminal record. It’s a pretty harmful and malicious joke. It’d be pretty easy to argue malicious intent in court.”

“Maybe they didn’t know it was lethal?”

“Was it you? Did you put it in his whistle?”

“No!”

“Then you shouldn’t be so defensive. Playing devil’s advocate here will just make you suspect.”

“Stop being so…whatever.” Stiles huffed, leaning back and crossing his arms.

“Maybe you should think before you start arguing. Besides, like I was telling Lydia and Allison, historically women favor poison over force. All I’m saying is that calling this hypothetical person a ‘he’ is probably inaccurate as most research indicates a woman.”

“Okay. Fine. We won’t assign a gender to this hypothetical person then. Where do you even get this stuff anyway!”

“I read it somewhere once. Are you planning on staying right here?”

“I was,” Stiles grumbled, “why?”

Laken didn’t bother replying, instead she leaned up against Stiles’ side, ignoring the way he momentarily froze up, and closed her eyes. He was much more comfortable to lean on than the window pane was last night.


	20. You Know It Won't Get Worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took an unprecedented amount of time to write (and rewrite) and thus is also possibly the longest chapter I've posted because I just want to move past it.
> 
> This chapter also contains some depictions of violence that some readers may be sensitive to, it occurs within the dream sequence that is in italics at the beginning of the chapter.
> 
> Anyway, here's Currents.

_Oh hell yes  
_ _I’m a nervous wreck_

~Fall Out Boy, “[West Coast Smoker](https://youtu.be/KP1KyqWoDd0)”

 

* * *

_Grey and brown swirled around her. Moths battered against her skin, crawling along her neck and hair, and smudging against her glasses. Feverishly brushing them off of her face and hair and ears, her hand came away with a single moth, fluttering it’s lacy black and white wings slowly in her palm. Her hand jerked to shake off the insect, but it clung on and slowly opened it’s wings displaying the lacy pattern of swirls. As the cloud of moths cleared, slowly revealing her surroundings, the moth in her palm took flight and disappeared, too_

_She stood in a white room, void of everything except for a muffled screaming coming from behind her. Turning, she saw two people, a man in scrubs and a woman in a doctor’s coat, bound and gagged to bright white columns. They were screaming at her, wide-eyed with fear and frantically trying to get her to help.  She lifted her hands to show them she would help, to sign to them to calm down; but as she lifted her hands, she was startled to see that she was holding a length of wire and a heavy knife. The man and woman began to thrash wildly against their binds, screaming wordlessly through their gags._

_‘No, no, no,” she muttered mutely to herself. She tried to drop the weapons but as soon as she put them down, they were back in her hands._

_‘Do it.’ A male voice whispered in her right ear._

_‘Do it or we will,” came a female voice in her left._

_She turned frantically right and left, seeing the familiar faces of Dr. Deaton and Ms. Blake._

_‘Do it, or we will.” They said in monotone unison, their mouths unmoving. ‘Do it or it will only make things worse. Make the sacrifice.’_

_They went from standing at her shoulders to standing next to the posts in the blink of an eye. She shook her head and stumbled as she backed away from them._

_Dr. Deaton held a wire up to the man’s throat, Ms. Blake raised her knife holding the butt against the woman doctor’s head. They laughed and Dr. Deaton pulled the wire back, while Ms. Blake brought the handle of the knife down._

Laken jolted awake as her alarm blasted out with the traffic report.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“ _Two have gone missing en route to Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital._ ” The TV anchor read from the off-screen teleprompter, her voice fading in and out. “ _Last night we reported a massive ten car pile-up between Main and South, that stalled traffic for hours… along with the soft-closing of the downtown hospital, Beacon County General Hospital, have led to the overcrowding of Memorial. Reports of the missing staff came through in the midst of the pile-up… Doctor Hilyard’s car was found empty… Sheriff’s department was on the scene… no word on the whereabouts of the ER attending.  Mayor Davis has yet to comment about the recent spike in crimes since his election to the seat earlier this year. More on this story as details become available.  In other news, Pippy the 14 year old Pomeranian celebrates another….”_

“LYDIA! We’re going to be late!” Laken yelled from the kitchen, closing her lunch box and stuffing it in her backpack. She grabbed her water bottle off the cabinet and walked through the living room to wait by the front door.

The news anchor started talking to her co-host about the amount of disappearances in the last month. Laken skin broke out in goosebumps.

She stamped her foot impatiently at the foot of the stairs. “ _LYDIA_!”

Lydia came hurrying down the stairs, rolling up the sleeves of her blouse as she went. “ _I’m coming_! Bye, mom! Have a great day!” Lydia breezed through the living room to kiss her mom on the cheek. She grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl and hurried over to where Laken stood impatiently by the door.

“Bye, sweetie!” Natalie called as Laken pulled the door open and scooped her track duffle off the flood. “Bye, Aunt Nat.”

Natalie looked up from the TV and picked up her bowl of oatmeal. “Have a good day.”

“You too!”

Lydia smiled sweetly at her mom before ducking through the door and closing it behind her.

“Aren’t you going to tell me I look cute today?”

Unthinkingly Laken responded, “why would I lie?”

Lydia turned a half-venomous glare at Laken, “what is _with_ you today?”

“Can we just get going, please.”  Laken mumbled, zipping the water bottle into her track bag.

Lydia sighed heavily and twirled her keys around her index finger, “let’s go.”

Laken fidgeted the whole way to school, with the radio, her hair, her seatbelt, her backpack, everything.

“Look, I know this isn’t PMS, but if you don’t stop I’m going to hand you a bottle of Midol.” There was a beat of silence in which Lydia tapped the steering wheel. “What about this outfit don’t you like?”

“God, Lydia.”

“I’m serious!”

“You rock it, okay? But I think you look like you’re about to go remake the music video for ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time.’”

Lydia hummed, “well that’s not so bad. I love Brit-Brit.” She cast a glance at Laken, “I’d say you could look better, but considering you have to go to track first thing, you’re pulling off the athletic wear well.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Are you going to tell me why you’re so testy?”

Laken stubbornly sat through the duration of the next red light in silence.

“I just didn’t sleep that well last night,” Laken sulked, “I had another dream about Ms. Blake killing someone.”

“Ode, she’s not that bad. Is she the greatest teacher? No. but she’s not… she doesn’t _seem_ to be a killer.”

“Yeah well how come when she started teaching here people started dying?”

Lydia took a deep breath, “people were dying here well _before_ she got here.”

The pair went parted ways once they got to school Laken went to meet with the track team while Lydia met with a teacher to debate an inconsistency in the textbook and the notes, something that Laken was glad to not be a part of.

Out on the track, Finnstock stood at the starting line.

“Alright!” Finnstock barked louder than necessary at the group of students. He tapped his clipboard with his brand new whistle. “The track meet as been put off indefinitely, something about the other teams coming down with a major case of the shits and someone shattered an ankle, whatever.”

A few people groaned out in disgust.

“I know! I know!” Finnstock held up his hands, “but it’s out of my control. There aren’t any other meets scheduled for the rest of the season – don’t start cheering, Greenburg, or you’ll spend the next forty years doing suicide runs – we’re going to be competing against ourselves. By the end of the season whoever has the best record of running times, most improvement, that kind of stuff, will get extra credit in whatever class they want, as long as it’s not with Harris.”

“Harris is still missing, Coach.” One of the lacrosse guys called from the back of the pack. A couple of his buddies cheered and fist bumped at the reminder.

Finnstock pointed at him, “right. But if he comes back, I’m not wagering your extra points with him. Got it?”

There was a dull unenthusiastic chorus of “Yes, Coach!”

“Good, now start running!” Finnstock blew his whistle loudly, making half the team closest to him wince and a couple jump.  He pulled a stopwatch out of his pocket and started the time. “Go!”

A few people jumped into action, but most of the team started at a much more sluggish pace.

“Smith!” Finnstock stuck his clipboard out in her path, stopped her before she could start down the track.

“Yes, sir?”

“Where are your hooligan friends? Stilinski and McCall aren’t here, neither are the twins, or Melahani for that matter.”

Laken shrugged, “no idea, sorry.”

Finnstock narrowed his eyes and muttered something about those boys always disappointing him, but never Danny. He waved Laken off and moved to sit on the metal benches, still grumbling to himself as he wrote on his clipboard.

“Lahey! Where are your hooligan friends!?” Finnstock barked at Isaac, who was bent over on the side of the track tying his shoe.

Isaac straightened up and shrugged.

Finstock glared at him. “Well then get moving! All of you!”

 Laken managed to keep pace with Macy and a very distracted Isaac, both working at a light jog. Then it was back to the perfume smog of the girls’ locker room to change and freshen up before heading to class.

~~

Moving through the hallway on her way to class, Laken ran into Scott and Stiles near their lockers. Laken couldn’t help but grin, both wearing nearly identical plaid shirts, black undershirts, and jeans in a similar wash. They looked like they were about to walk into an embarrassing family photo shoot for biker-farmers where they would have to lay on top of one another or cradle a comically large gourd like a baby.

“Good morning,” she sang slyly, eyeing their expressions carefully.

Stiles frowned, eyeing Laken’s expression cautiously, “what?”

“You two look adorable.” Laken continued to grin.

Stiles looked to Scott, who frowned and shrugged.

Laken decided to put them out of their misery. “Did you coordinate on purpose? Or are you sharing clothes?”

Stiles jaw rolled, “plaid happens to be very popular.”

“Plaid, black undershirts, same wash jeans. I’m going to say matching.”

Stiles sputtered, “we shop together sometimes!”

“Did you two call each other up this morning and discuss what you were wearing so you could match? I have friends who used to do that. It’s kinda _Mean Girls_ , but it’s fun on spirit days to match your friends.”

Stiles scowled “we do not _call_ each other and plan our outfits.”

Laken continued to tease them, “Scott, you’ve been awfully quiet about this.”

Scott merely shrugged, trying to hide a smirk. Stiles hit his shoulder and winced. “We didn’t coordinate on purpose. There’s always a chance that we’re going to match if I decide to wear plaid, Stiles’ always wears plaid.”

“That’s true,” Laken hummed, pointing at Scott and nodding. “The only time he isn’t in plaid is when he’s wearing a hoodie instead.”

Stiles pouted.

“Do you think Harris will show up to torment you two today?”

“God I hope not,” Stiles sighed.

“With everything going on, it sounds like everyone pretty much assumes he’s dead. Harris would totally haunt this school if he was.”

“Harris would haunt us.” Scott laughed and gestured between himself and Stiles.

“Oh God,” Laken laughed. “You might want to invest in a Ouija board or some salt then. Maybe get the number for Ghostbusters.”

Stiles turned slowly to Scott, wide eyed, “you don’t think… ghosts?”

Scott subtly shook his head.

“Uh, well we’d better get to class. _If_  Harris is here we don’t need another year of detentions.” Stiles tapped Scott on the chest and started down the hall.

Scott shook his head and shifted another book from his locker to his backpack and shut the locker door, “you are so lucky you didn’t get him.”

“Hashtag blessed,” Laken winked at him as he walked off to join Stiles.

~~

Morrell stood at the front of the classroom writing verb conjugations for a new tense. Between hastily jotting down notes, Laken was trying to text Allison under her desk and find out if she was alright and wanted a copy of the notes. So far Laken only managed a clipped ‘where are you?’ before Morrell had turned around to explain how conjugate basic verbs with the tense.

She was in the middle of a much longer version of the same text when Morrell turned around to the face the class clutching her own cellphone tightly in her fist, in her other hand the chalk cracked in two.

“Excusez-moi, mes étudiants,” Ms. Morrell cleared her throat, “it seems there is an emergency and I must leave. Try and work out these verb conjugations on your own, and we will pick up where we left off tomorrow. You are dismissed.”

The class moved sluggishly, as if stunned by Morrell’s sudden dismissal of them. Morrell, however, did not move from her desk till most of the class had made their way out of the room.

“Mademoiselle Smith, un moment.”

Laken took several large steps backward to Ms. Morrell’s desk.

“I’ll be back later today, after lunch. I just wanted you to know to expect to be called into my office later today.”

Laken nodded mutely.

~~

 While all of her friends were off doing things that didn’t include her, Laken was seated in Ms. Morrell’s office.

Morrell hurried into the room, fifteen minutes after she had summoned Laken to the small guidance office with only ten minutes left to the school day. And after spending half the period outside sweating in the sun.

“Sorry I’m late,” Morrell apologized without a hint of actual regret. “I had a bit of an off-campus emergency that took longer that I expected. And then we had the fire alarm malfunction to deal with.”

Laken smiled tersely but politely said, “it’s fine.”

“Now.” Morrell settled in behind her desk. “I know you’ve gone thought some rough changes lately…”

Morrell’s sentence was left hanging, leadingly, in attempt to get Laken to talk.

“And you’re just now calling me in?”

Morrell looked at Laken sadly, “I was hoping you would have come to me by now. But I’ve learned that the resilience of teenagers is quite fascinating, there isn’t much that they can’t bounce back from. Your guardian advised me to let you adjust, but I feel like it’s my duty to ensure that you are adjusting as well as it seems that you are.”

“Well, you _are_ the guidance counselor,” Laken said with lofty sarcasm.

“I am,” Morrell nodded. “I would have called you in sooner, but, ah-well, you know that there have been bigger issues lately with the school as a whole.”

“So why waste your time on one well-adjusted student when you have so many other ‘issues’ to deal with.”

“I like to make personal connections with students, let them know my door is always open if they feel the need to talk about anything. You’ve had a fairly traumatic start to the year, and it is my job to make sure that our students do not feel alone in whatever they are going through.”

“I’m not alone.” The air in the office felt sticky warm and Laken’s palms started to sweat. “Yes, there may have been some rough changes, as you call them, but they’re not excessively traumatizing or emotionally stunting. It was an unforeseen incident and it’s something I’ve come to terms with.”

Morrell silently studied Laken. In the hall the dismissal bell rang, Laken resisted the urge to dig her phone out of her bag and check it. Ms. Morrell didn’t speak until the bell stopped.

“Is that what you think? How you feel about it? You’re handing it well?” Morrell glanced at a folder under her palm. “Your transition to this school after your mother’s disappearance and your father’s death have gone just as well as someone who’s family just moved into town, better even.”

“Good to know,” Laken’s response was short and clipped. She was ready to be out of that room. “But, with all due respect, I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of me. I’m dealing with my demons and I don’t need to recount them for your benefit or for you to tell me that I should find someone to talk to.”

“Very well,” Morrell folded her hands over the folder. “My door is always open should you feel the need to recount or talk to someone, then.”

“I doubt I’ll be feeling that urge anytime soon.”

“Just one more thing then, Laken. A few…trivial questions, if you will.”

Laken remained seated and stony faced.

“You appear to have fallen in with Lydia’s group of friends quite well.  Have you been making friends on your own? Friends that you can trust?”

“I have friends.” Laken answered without actually answering the question. “I trust them.”

“You’ve adjusted well to living with the Martins? Lydia’s taking it well having another person around? I know she’s used to living with just her mother.”

Laken shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“Do you find the school work hard to keep up with? BHHS has a different structure than your old school.”

“You have access to my transcripts, you’re aware of my grades.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“I’ve maintained Honor Roll. You should be able to see I’m not the strongest in Math.”

“I’m aware that your grades are slightly lower in Mathematics, yes.”  Morrell flipped open the folder on her desk. “Is there a sense of rivalry between you and Lydia? Lydia is quite competitive academically and I see here that your IQ is, if I’m recalling correctly, one point under Lydia’s recorded IQ.”

Laken’s body prickled with warm sweat and she wiped her palms against her shorts. “That…that question is inappropriate. Are we done here? May I go?” The response was instinctual and crass than a better thought out one would have been. A knee-jerk reaction whenever people tired to pit her and Lydia’s brains against each other and insinuate that one of them wasn’t as smart as the other. It brought her back, just for a second, to the summers that their parents would sit in the back patio and compare their accomplishments, always trying to one up the other.

Morrell simply gestured to the door, lips pursed.

“Have a good day, Ms. Morrell.” Laken chirped flashing Morrell a polite but venomous smile that would have made Lydia proud and rose from her seat.

“You too, Laken.”

She froze at the door and looked back at Ms Morrell, who seemed wholly unfazed by Laken’s behavior or abrupt exit as if she expected it. Morrell’s gaze was unsettling but Laken hid the shiver that ran up her spine by turning back around and leaving the office with her head held high.

The waffled treads of her shoes made soft squeaks through the nearly barren hallway, she only passed a janitor buffing the floors on her way out the door.

Laken walked out to the parking lot, more than ready to leave the school.  Lydia’s car was missing. Stiles’ Jeep and Scott’s dirt bike was gone too.  She sighed, dug her phone out of her purse, and sat down on the steps.

Lydia’s phone rang and rang and rang till her voicemail picked up. Laken didn’t bother, a missed call was almost as effective as a voicemail.

Stiles’ phone rang repeatedly too, till it went to voicemail.

Scott’s phone wasn’t even on, it went directly to voicemail without a single ring.

Allison’s phone rang twice, then she answered.

“Allison hey, listen I know you weren’t at school today, but do you think you could come pick me up?  Lydia’s left already and I’m stranded at school.”

“I’m so sorry, Lake! I can’t. My dad has the car.”

“It’s fine.”

“I’m really sorry. Did you call Lydia?”

“It’s okay, really. Yeah I called Lydia, Stiles, and Scott. None of them answered. I’ll give Lydia another try.”

“Okay. Call me back if you need and I’ll see if I can convince my dad to pick you up.”

“Thanks, Alli.”

Laken stared at her phone and begrudgingly tapped on a contact.

“Hello?”

“Aunt Nat? Can you come pick me up? I think Lydia forgot or something and left without me.”

“Of course. I’ll be right there.”

“Thank you so much. I’m really sorry. I don’t know…I guess she forgot that I had a meeting with the guidance counselor and thought I got a ride home?”

“It’s no problem, honey. I’ll be there in five.”

She shot a quick text to Allison and settled in on the hot cement steps to wait.

It didn’t take long for Natalie Martin’s sleek black BMW to pull into the parking lot.

“I’m so sorry.” Laken apologized again as she slid into Natalie’s car.

“It’s okay.” Natalie laughed, “your mother was always apologizing too. She even apologized to me once when she had her appendix taken out, for worrying me when she was the one having surgery.”

“She had her appendix out?”

“Oh yes. I remember that day, I had the most ridiculous feeling that something was wrong all day, that I had to call Penny, and when I called her, she was in the hospital with a burst appendix. Pure coincidence.”

“I don’t remember that?”

“It was before you were born. Your mother and I were still in college.”

“You weren’t at the same college?”

“I stayed local, she ran off to UCLA and eventually all the way to Chicago. I think she was only at UCLA that day. Her roommate had to drive her to the hospital. It’s strange how that day I couldn’t focus, I kept thinking that I had to call your mom.”

“So you had a premonition.”

Natalie laughed.  “You don’t really believer that do you?”

Laken shrugged, “it’s intuition. Like déjà vu or synchronicity, they’re phenomenon that happen and we can’t explain it.”  

Natalie looked at Laken out the corner of her eyes wearing an expression, like a parent humoring a child’s wild story, that seemed to say ‘what was my sister doing raising you to believe such things?’

Laken’s let her face go blank, she shifted uncomfortably in her seat and let the silence hang. Natalie didn’t try to pick up the conversation again.

Natalie didn’t turn down the familiar route home, instead she hit the main road.

“Is there construction?”

“Hmm? Oh no we’re not going home. Sheriff Stilinski called, we’re heading in to meet with him.”

“Oh.” After the discussion with Morrell the Beacon County Sheriff Station was the last place she wanted to be. “Did they find something?”

“He didn’t say.”

~~

Laken realized that night, climbing into bed that she didn't remember a word of what Sheriff Stilinski had told them. Whatever information that they were given, didn’t sink in. It was the same information anyway, the same things they were told every time they got an update.

 


	21. It's In Our Blood, It's In Our Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm splitting my NaNoWriMo time between this story and another one, which hopefully means I'll finish 3a before season 6 starts (!!!) if not then the end of the month. There are about ten more chapters of In Our Blood to go as things are blocked out now and then we'll be moving on to part two!

_As if that were ever good enough  
__So lets not be vague,  
__We’re all a little freaked out these days  
__So give me one drink and a tune,  
__And 20 minutes of you and the hope  
__I want to feel good tonight_  
~You Me And Everyone We Know, “[Colorful Language](https://youtu.be/yiLMUZ54saI)”

* * *

 

Lydia had her own special way of apologizing. It involved, as always, a credit card in her father’s name and a 24-hour Macy's.

So the next morning after Lydia presented Laken with some slightly burnt, slightly uncooked pancakes, she also presented the credit card.

“Puh-lease.” Lydia scoffed, wagging the black plastic in Laken’s face. “Daddy always foots the bill. It’s the least he can do.”

The new brown leather Steve Madden Troopa boots that Lydia insisted were made for Laken’s feet _would_ look great with skinny jeans, and she _could_ rock that new shade of  Too Faced lipstick. Carrying their purchases around the mall, Laken felt guilty that spending money was making her feel slightly better as if it was compensating for something else. But it wasn’t just the joy of using her father’s credit card as penitence for his absence, it was giggling with Lydia when she would show Laken a pair of weird looking shoes or humungous earrings, or when Lydia dragged her into a photobooth and they took silly pictures together for the first time in what felt like forever. It felt good to relax and unwind like that, almost as if they weren’t living in a town riddled with murder.

Sunday started with a trip to the hair salon, after Lydia ran her fingers through Laken’s hair and pronounced it in need of a cut.

“I love it!” Lydia announced, half-squealing in delight when she saw the lighter golden coppered color of Laken’s hair and the pink under-layer and ends. She walked around Laken’s chair, the hair stylists standing back in amusement as Lydia critiqued her work. She scrunched the ends of Laken’s hair in her hands, feeling the texture of it. 

“It’s edgy but not too edgy. I was a little iffy at first when you said pink, and I’m so glad you took my advice to lighten up the rest of your hair. It looks surprisingly good together. The pink blends in with the red tones nicely. I still think you should have gone shorter though. You hardly cut anything off the length.” 

Lydia’s own hair got a trim, cutting an inch off, which didn’t give her much room to talk, but Laken let it slide with an amused grin.

And Sunday night, it involved grocery shopping for Natalie and picking up junk food for a movie night later in the week with Allison.

“I need Claritin.”

Lydia sighed dramatically, “do you really?”

"Mhmm. Just in case."

Lydia stopped her before she could step away from the cart.

“Hey. Wait. What kind of ice cream?”

“Neapolitan? Can’t go wrong with simple chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. And get add-ins? Like hot fudge, uh, maybe some of that ‘magic shell’ in peanut butter or something fun. Just for the love of God, no sprinkles.”

“I’ll get it. You get…”Lydia checked the list Natalie had passed them on the way out the door, “Mom’s protein supplements. It’s with the pharmaceuticals anyway. Meet me in the bakery section when you’re done.”

Laken clicked her tongue and pointed at Lydia before turning and walking away.

“I hate when you do that!” Lydia called at her back.

~~

Laken played with spoon-straw in her slushee. “That shopping trip was a dud. I hope your mom isn’t too mad that we couldn’t find everything on the list…

and that we got all that candy. Why was the specialty store even out of her green health smoothie powder anyway? Isn’t that, like, their biggest push?”

Lydia hummed half-listening. Her body tensed, grip shifted on the wheel, holding it tighter.

“Are you okay?”

Lydia’s face twisted in pain and she let out a scream.

Laken quickly set her slushee cup between her knees and clapped her hands over her ears.

“Lydia, _what the fuck_? Pull over in the parking lot when we cross the tracks, I’ll drive home.”

Lydia rested her head against the steering wheel and took a shaky breath. “No. I’m okay. I’m fine.”

Laken started to undo her seatbelt. “We could switch right now. There’s no one behind us.”

“No. Really. It’s okay.”

“You just screamed for no reason. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, no, I’m okay.” Lydia straightened up and started driving after the crossing arms lifted.

“Are you sure? I really don’t mind. Is your blood sugar low? You want some of my slushee?”

Lydia shook her head and focused on the road. “Thanks. I’m fine.”

“Hey. Lydia?”

“Hmm?” Lydia hummed as she put the car in park and shut it off.

“Why are we at school?”

Lydia’s eyes widened.

“You really should have just let me drive. Okay, let’s just switch now and I’ll drive us home.”

Lydia shook her head, muttering ‘no’ repeatedly under her breath. She clawed for her purse and dug in it, pulling out her phone. “I have to call Stiles.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s just like when we turned up at the pool.”

“Oh Jesus. Are we going to find a dead body?”

“No. _Stiles_ is going to find the body. Because I am not doing it.” Lydia huffed, pressing the phone to her ear. “I’m not doing this again.”

Laken sank in her seat, placing her cup in the cupholder.

“Stiles? There’s another dead body… I’m at the school… No, I was on the way home with Laken. We went on a grocery run… Yes she’s with me… I’m aware…Well you told me to call you first next time…Just get here.”

“And now we wait?”

“Yep.”

Allison was the first to show up, though neither Lydia nor Laken had called her themselves. She pulled Lydia and Laken into hugs and made sure that they were okay.

“Did you call Stiles?” Allison directed the question at Lydia.

Laken rolled her eyes and bit her tongue. Lydia nodded.

Scott’s dirt bike roared through the lot, followed by the bright lights of Stiles’ Jeep.

“Lydia?” Stiles called through the parking lot. Scott following not far behind. “Where is she?”

“Over here!” Allison called.

Lydia didn’t wait for Stiles to reach her, she met him halfway. Scott joined Allison and Laken.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know I just got here?” Allison shrugged, glancing at Laken.

Laken shrugged too. “Lydia just… ended up here. I offered to drive, she seemed really freaked out, and now here we are.”

Scott frowned and nodded.

When Lydia and Stiles walked back over to them, Lydia was rapidly explaining the situation.

“It’s the same thing, the same as the pool. I got in my car, heading somewhere totally different, then ended up here, and you told me to call when there’s a dead body!”

“You found a dead body?” Stiles hurried forward.

“Not yet.” Lydia hedged.

“We didn’t get that far.” Laken offered up to split the tension.

“What do you mean not yet? You’re supposed to call after you find the dead body. After!”

“Why are there so many stipulations to finding a body? _Find a dead body, call stiles first, call the police second._   Are we supposed to be following this Three Laws of Robotics style? This isn’t usually how this sort of thing works. What if we contaminate the crime scene?” Laken asked as she walked around the pair and pulled a face at Scott.

“No! I’m not doing that again. I am not finding the body. You find the dead bodies from now on.”

Laken froze as she caught sight of the body Lydia hadn’t wanted to find. Blood dripped down from where it was laying draped across the BHHS sign over the doorway, dark blood painted the bricks and created a waterfall of drying blood over the doorway of the school. She shook her head, trying to not see the body from the lifeguard station or the one from the tree on the cross-country trail, but they all stood side by side in her mind.

“Uh… guys.” Laken reached out blindly and ended up hitting Scott in the middle of the back. She tapped him with the back of her hand to get their attention.  Then Laken pointed at the body.

Scott turned and stood at her shoulder. He gently touched Laken’s back so she knew he saw it too.

Behind them Stiles and Lydia were still arguing. “How are we supposed to find the dead body? You’re the one who’s always finding the dead body!”

“Guys….” Scott called over his shoulder. “We found the dead body.”

“Why does that look like a lot more blood than the others?” Laken said faintly. Her body swayed slightly as her knees gave out and she sagged into Scott.

Scott caught her around the waist.

“Are you okay?”

“I might throw up.” Laken offered, pressing her lips together.

Scott shot Stiles a pleading glance. He came up behind Laken and scooped her up. “Let’s not contaminate the crime scene. Come on. We gotta get away from the bloody body before I pass out too.”

Stiles lead Laken away from the sign to the edge of the parking lot where there was a trashcan in case she did throw up.

“That’s practically the fifth dead body I’ve seen."

 “It’s okay. It can be…overwhelming.” Stiles shrugged, “my dad once told me that at his first crime scene he passed out, I did some digging and the ‘crime scene’ was actually a woman giving birth on the side of the highway. Another guy in his class at the academy puked all over a corpse when they went to the morgue. And another guy almost sprinkled cocaine from a drug bust in his coffee instead of sugar.”

Laken let out a short laugh and gripped the edge of the metal trashcan.

“How are you at skating?”

“Huh?”

“Skating? Ice skating?” Stiles said slowly. “I just, you know I’ve seen Lydia skate before, is that genetic?”

“I– I  won’t fall…” Laken shrugged, “but I’m no were near Lydia-level. None of that jumping stuff, skates firmly on the ice.”

Stiles smiled slowly and nodded. He tucked his hands into his back pockets and rocked on his heels. “So, are you feeling better?”

“I, um, yeah.”

“Distractions… they help. Funny stories, asking questions, making you think. It takes your mind off….” Stiles waved his hand at the scene behind them.

“So they weren’t true stories then? Just a funny ones?”

“Oh, no, that, those were definitely true. Stick around long enough and you’ll probably hear it first hand one day.” Seeing the look on Laken’s face, Stiles added, “he doesn’t just walk around telling it to just anyone. I think Scott’s heard them a few times though. He, uh, he doesn’t just walk up to strangers and tell them those stories. But sometimes he feels nostalgic and tells me and Scott stories about his early days on the force and the Academy.”

Laken nodded, “that sounds pretty cool, actually.”

Stiles tentatively grasped Laken’s hand, afraid that she’d shrug him off. When she didn’t jerk away, he bettered his hold.

 “Come on. Let’s get you back to the car and get you and Lydia out of here. I’ll call my dad after.” Stiles lead Laken back to Lydia’s car. “And you’ll probably end up waking up in the middle of the night remembering those bodies, it happens. Just…know that if you need someone to distract you, you can call me. It doesn’t matter if it’s two in the fricken’ morning.”

“Thanks,” Laken said apologetically. She swung their hands between them and sighed, “I, um, I’m sorry for… that, uh, freak out. I’m trying. I’m trying not to. I’m trying really hard to let things just happen. Most of the time it’s easy to keep moving. What’s hard is actually dealing with it. And it seems like it’s catching up to me.”

Their hands loosened, and Laken left Stiles to wait in Lydia’s car. Stiles chewed on his lip and returned to Lydia, Scott, and Allison.

“Lydia. Go home. Scott and I will handle the cops.”

“But what about the body?”

Scott glanced at Allison, who jumped into action.

“Come on, Lyd. I’ll follow you home.”

Lydia deflated helplessly, “fine. Okay.”


	22. We All Want Some

_When the fever hits the fan and you spout out your commands,  
_ _Remember that we all feel the weather,  
_ _That we all feel the weathering hours of disconnect.  
_ _That we may fear the litmus test  
_ _Stay tuned, the rest must fuel this quest  
_ _For a better way to all stick together,  
_ _Way to all stick together, you goddamn hypocrites._  
~Motion City Soundtrack, “@!#?@!”

* * *

Lydia stopped short in the middle of the second floor hallway and made a face at the thin grey and purple pull over sweater and the pair of denim shorts that Laken wore.

“Are you really wearing that?”

“I did not call the fashion police for advice today, but yes.”

Lydia sighed, “at least let me do your hair.”

She took Laken into her room and braided Laken’s hair back and into a sleek high pony tail.

“I like this color on you.”

“Thanks.” Laken droned, sounding listless and tired.

“Did you sleep okay  last night?” Lydia asked as she picked lent off Laken’s shoulders before they went downstairs.

“No. I made macarons instead.”

“You made macarons?” Lydia’s face screwed up in confusion, “aren’t those really hard to make?”

“Kind of.” Laken shrugged, “we didn’t have any almond meal, so I had to improvise.”

“Lake,” Lydia said her name in exasperation.

~

In the car, Lydia sat in the passenger seat, grey pastry container full of multicolored macarons in her lap. Laken sat in the driver’s seat with a little more light in her eyes after Lydia forced coffee into her.

“These must have taken all night to make.” Lydia peaked in the container at the rows of pastries. “Did you even go to bed?”

“Honestly? I don’t really remember.”

Lydia sniffed, “is that lemon?”

“I think so. There’s orange, blueberry, and raspberry, too. I was going to make strawberry and pistachio but I figured I shouldn’t.”

Lydia closed the container and turned in her seat, lips pursed. “What I’m gathering from this,” she pointed at the macarons, “is that the more complex the dish you bake, the more stress you’re dealing with. So whenever you start making crow-un-boosh I’ll sign you up for a psychiatrist.”

“Croquembouche.  And it’s _fine_.”

“Lake it’s not fine. Maybe you should see Morrell.”

“Lyd, it’s fine. It’s like a diamond now.”

“A what?”

“A diamond, you know coal turns into a diamond when you apply an incredible amount of pressure to it? Well my stress is now a diamond. Which is way better than stress-coal. It’s become diamond-pastries. The stress is gone, the stress is a diamond.”

“That… that makes no sense?!”

Laken laughed. “It’s a metaphor.”

“I know what a metaphor is.”

~~

 “Idioms, analogies, metaphors, and similes. All tools for the writer to tell their story.”

Ms Blake paced up and down the rows, looking over shoulders as she discussed the different figures of speech and how they were used. She stalled at Lydia’s shoulder.

“Lydia, I wasn’t aware you had so many hidden talents”

Lydia tilted her head to look at Ms. Blake through her lashes and grinned coyly. “You and every guy I’ve ever dated”

Laken hid a laugh in a cough. Blake’s eyes darted to Laken and grimaced for a split second before putting on a smile.

Ms. Blake laughed, “… and that was an idiom by the way.”  Then she continued walking slowly up the isle. Lydia caught Laken’s eye, shrugged, and went back to her doodle.

“Idioms are something of a secret to the people who know the language or culture.”

“No offense, Ms. Blake, while I’m sure that’s what’s written in the textbook that’s not really the case. While most idioms don’t translated very well there are typically parallels among languages. Where in English we might say that something cost an arm or a leg as an exaggerated way to show expense, the French might say ‘coûter les yeux de la tête’ which translates to ‘to cost the eyes from your head.’ Or in Spain, you might ‘open a box of thunder’ instead of a can of worms. The words are different but the meaning is the same.  So you can’t really claim that idioms are a secret to people of a particular language or culture, they just manifest in different forms.” Laken spoke dully while tapping her pen against her notebook.  “There’s really no difference. The only secret is if you don’t want to know the language.”

Blake bristled. “That may be true. But they’re composed of phrases that only make sense if you know key words.”

“Uh. Isn’t that basically what I just said? Most idioms transcend time because we’re familiar with history and the pop culture that created them, the only way you’re catching someone off guard with one is if you either make it up or they’re a time traveler from the past or another planet with a completely different social structure.”

“Saying ‘jump the gun is meaningful only if you know about the starting gun in a race. Or a phrase like ‘seeing the whole board.’”

“Like in chess.” Stiles shot Laken a wide-eyed look that said ‘please, shut up.’

“That’s right, Stiles. Do you play?”

“My father does.”

“Now when does an idiom become a cliché?”

Hands went up around the classroom, Blake’s eyes locked on Laken, silently daring her to answer.

“When they’re overused and oversaturated in common conversation. They become phrases that are used to the extent that they no longer hold their original meaning or have become boring to hear.”

Ms. Blake pursed her lips and turned, walking to the other end of the classroom.

“Phrases like ‘as brave as a lion’ or ‘as cleaver as a fox’ are examples of clichés that we often use to describe people. Even phrases like ‘all is fair in love and war’ have become clichés where they were once very clever idioms. You’re probably familiar with some cliché phrases like ‘the quiet before the storm’ or ‘waking up on the wrong side of the bed’ and ‘read between the lines.’”

Blake continued the lecture and avoided allowing Laken to answer or elaborate on any point at all costs. Laken simmered in her seat for the rest of the period.

Lydia laughed at Laken as they walked down the hallway. 

“Laken, honey, just let it go.”

“But…aren’t we supposed to be learning?!”

“You were kind of rude to her.”

“Rude! I was just offering up a differing direction on the matter. Isn’t that what school is for? The presentation of differing opinions so that we can learn from them?”

“Lake.” Lydia sighed. “It’s not worth it. Just go to class and forget about it. You don’t need her breathing down your neck for the rest of the year.”

Laken’s shoulders slumped. “Fine.”

“Good,” Lydia patted Laken’s cheek. “Now. I’ve got a cute boy to make out with. You have French.”

“Use protection!” Laken called out after Lydia.

Lydia held up her middle finger as she walked away. Laken laughed and turned away, promptly running face first into someone’s chest.

“Stiles!” Laken gasped and pressed a palm to her chest.

Stiles gripped her upper arms to steady her. “Watch it. You might run into the wrong person one day.”

“Yeah, well, why were you right behind me?”

“I was walking.” Stiles grinned teasingly, “that’s what people do in hallways.”

“Smartass.”

“That’s what the call me.” Stiles frowned and licked his lower lip. He glanced down at Laken then over her shoulder. “Look I gotta go, Scott’s waiting…but, I’ll text you, yeah?”

Laken nodded and half watched Stiles as he skirted around her and disappeared in the flow of students. Then she sighed and went to class, just like everyone else.

~~~

Laken came out of French impossibly annoyed with Morrell and texting her disappearing friends; to Allison she sent a series of texts about their assignment and Morrell leaving once again, to Stiles she sent teasing texts about the macarons he missed out on, and lastly she asked Lydia if missing class was worth the make out session. Morrell had left the class with back-of-the-book work after half an hour of vocabulary and told them to sit quietly till the bell rang, then left.

She fumbled her phone when a familiar scream ripped out of the classroom she was walking by. A few students stopped in the doorway, adding to the cluster already there, and Laken nearly dropped her phone. She had to stand on her toes and peak between elbows and shoulders to see the cause of the commotion.

Inside, Lydia stood at the board with chalk in her hand.

“Twice in twenty-four hours,”  Laken grumbled to herself.  She pushed her way through the people, Aiden appeared a few steps behind her. His long strides quickly overtook hers.

“Lydia, what is it?” Aiden gently held Lydia’s arms.

“What on Earth was that?”

The hair on the back of Laken’s neck stood on end as she turned to see Ms. Blake standing in the doorway.

“Mr. Westover’s missing.” Lydia blurted.

Within minutes, Ms. Blake had assembled a small army of school security and administrators in Mr. Westover’s room and refused to allow Laken or Aiden to leave for lunch or class.  If Mr. Westover had any classes, they had abandoned the pretense of waiting for him in favor of a free period.

Aiden stayed with Lydia, leaning against Mr. Westover’s desk with an arm around Lydia’s shoulders. Laken sat in one of the desks ripping apart a pizza lunchable into [@!#?@!](https://youtu.be/QeHq5XUtUB4) bites, since her macarons had long ago disappeared largely thanks to Danny that morning.

Lydia started to look angry the fifteenth time she was asked to recount how she found that Mr. Westover was missing. “I don’t get why no one is calling the police!”

“They’re going to make an announcement over the PA – .”

“How is that supposed to help?” Laken scoffed, waving a pepperoni at Ms. Blake.

Lydia nodded throwing her arms out wide, “that’s not going to do anything!”

“Nothing _at all_.” Laken echoed.

“I told you, he’s gone, like the others. Taken.”

“But not like the movie, ‘cuz we’re not bidding on virgins. Well, Lydia and I aren’t, I’m not going to make assumptions about what you do in your free time, Ms. Blake,” Laken added. Aiden didn’t bother hiding his smirk.

Blake ignored Laken’s comment and Aiden’s smirk. “Okay, we’re just trying to understand. All we know is that Mr. Westover didn’t show up for class.”

“And the last time that happened was Mr. Harris. Anyone heard from him lately?” Lydia stood abruptly and moved to the chalkboard.

Scott and Ethan pushed past Mr. Westmore’s third period History class to stand in the doorway.

“Not me.” Laken answered, “and I definitely would have heard Stiles complaining about Harris’ shameless hatred of him if he had come back.”

“He’s gone and he’s going to be the second murder.” Lydia continued, pointing at the 2 written on the board.

Ms. Blake glanced upward then turned her attention back to Lydia. “But Lydia, you wrote that number.”

“Okay fine!” Lydia tossed her hands up, pacing between Aiden and Ms. Blake. “I’m psychic.”

“You’re psychic?”

“I’m something!” Lydia yelled in frustration.

“Lydia, you’re a genius.” Laken said calmly, “I think that’s something to note.”

Ms. Blake’s lips pressed into a tight line.

“Studies show that people with higher IQs are more susceptible to extrasensory perception.”

Lydia narrowed her eyes at Laken, but she continued on.

“It’s parapsychology. _Very_ polarizing.”

Ms. Blake’s eyes fluttered shut and she took a deep breath. “Okay, we’ll handle this. Why don’t you three head home?”

Lydia looked like she wanted to protest but nodded and grabbed Laken’s arm. Laken hastily gathered her things before Lydia could pull her out of the classroom. Aiden exited quietly behind them and kept stride with Lydia.

“Are you guys going to the memorial recital tonight?”

Lydia’s steps faltered, she stopped and batted her eyelashes at him. “We are.”

“Good, I’ll see you there then.” Aiden smiled down at Lydia, then grinned at Laken, “try not to piss off any more teachers tonight.”

“I aim to please,” Laken commented sarcastically.

Aiden nodded at the pair before turning and walking back the way they had came.

The flirty smile melted off Lydia’s face as she turned to Laken.

“Parapsychology? Really?” Lydia huffed. She roughly pushed open the doors to the parking lot.

“Look, Ms. Blake has been really getting on my nerves today,” Laken shrugged.

“Yeah. I noticed. Maybe you need a nap.”

Laken decidedly ignored the comment about naps. “What’s the big deal? I know it’s a pseudo-science, but it’s a legitimate fact within the discipline. The validity of the fact is not proved in natural science but it’s a widely documented  phenom–.”

“Look. Can we just…not.”

“Blake is on a total power trip, Lydia.”

Lydia rolled her eyes, “stop sounding like such a stereotypical teenager.”

“Uh, hellooooo, I am a teenager. I’m allowed to be petty to authority. Sometimes.”

“Really? Because I thought we were well-adjusted genius teenagers.”

“Only on paper,” Laken grumbled sheepishly. “Have you seen Blake’s RateMyProfessor page?”

Lydia pursed her lips and shook her head.

“That’s because she doesn’t have one. Everyone has one. Hell, Harris has one. With an overall quality rating of 2.5, a difficulty rating of 5, and a 2 on the hotness scale. Ms. Blake’s a ghost.”

“Does it really matter?” Lydia held out her hand for the car keys.

Laken shook her head and got into the driver’s seat. Lydia pouted but got into the passenger seat anyway.

“All I’m saying is that it’s weird. Do we really have to go to this school thing? I’m really into the idea of staying home and cuddling Prada while reading a good book.”

“Something on parapsychology?” Lydia teased.

“I was thinking along the lines of high fantasy.” Laken backed out of their parking spot. “Well if we have to go tonight, you can drive.”

Lydia laughed. “Fine.”

Laken shook her head and cranked up the radio before merging with traffic and heading home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spellcheck wasn't picking up macarons and despite having 5+ yrs of french classes, I still doubt that I spelled it right. I'm also trying to get these out faster, so it's less edited than i'd like it to be, but I definitely won't be able to finish the last few chapters before season 6 starts, but that won't stop me from trying.


	23. Burn The Hills Down To Defeat It

_She was built with a brain  
_ _And some swagger.  
_ _A little scream, little cry,  
_ _Little laughter.  
_ _She's a ten,  
_ _I'm a joke in my own mind.  
_ _But she still loves to dance  
_ _With my punch lines._  
~AWOLNATION, “[Not Your Fault](https://youtu.be/hjZVxgDQ2Vo)”

* * *

 

 

Lydia pulled into the school parking lot just as dusk was settling in the sky and the horizon turned dusty pink under the dark clouds gathering overhead.

Laken eyed the flow of people entering the school and turned to Lydia. “Is it too late to go home and watch The Notebook?”

“You don’t even like The Notebook.” Lydia half-laughed as she got out of the car, Laken following suit. “We need to be here.”

“Why?”

“I just… call it intuition. But with everything going on, all those deaths, we _need_ to be _here_ tonight.”

“Oh so I have to listen to your intuition but you won’t listen to mine?”

“Shut up.”

“You.”

“Brat.”

“Look who’s talking!”

“Just get in the school!”

“Fine!”

“Okay!”

“But if we find another dead body….” Laken warned.

“We won’t,”  Lydia laughed, “… I hope.”

Lydia hooked her arm around Laken’s and sighed, “besides, you really need to let go of the Ms. Blake thing. It’s clouding your judgment.”

“If there weren’t bodies dropping every week, I’d be more apt to attend social functions. I’m a self-preservationist and _my_ intuition is screaming ‘there’s something weird with Blake, do not pass go if you want to survive!’ and to be fair, you’re not the one having dreams about Ms. Blake standing over you with a knife.”

“So you start poking the bear?”

“If it makes the bear angry and it leaves.” Laken smiled innocently. “And if it poking this bear doesn’t lead to anything, then I know for sure. No threat detected.”

“But if you keep poking, you might fall into the bear pit.” Lydia warned.

“And that, my dear sweet mermaid, is when you drop to the floor, play dead fish, and hope that the bear is full and thinks you’re rotten.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Enough talking in analogies and metaphors. _Thank you_.”

“What were we talking about again? I lost it under all the snarky comments about bears and death. Do you think we can sneak out the back after Danny’s solo?”

Lydia laughed and tugged Laken through the hallway.

~~~

Wobbly strands of disorganized music filled the auditorium as the orchestra tuned their instruments on stage.

Lydia pulled Laken to stand against the back wall.

“What? We’re not sitting?”

“You wanted a quick exit didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but you didn’t.”

Scott joined them, leaning against the wall by Lydia.

“I thought you were going home.”

“We came back. I don’t know why I’m the one who keeps finding the bodies, but maybe if I stopped trying to fight it, I’d find them before it happens. Maybe with enough time for someone like you to do something about it,” Lydia said quietly to Scott.

“You get me the time, and I’ll do something about it. I swear to God I will.”

Lydia gently squeezed Scott’s hand.

The auditorium fell into a hush as the lights dimmed and the conductor stood at the podium.

“Hey,” Laken whispered to Lydia and Scott, “are they playing Hedwig’s Theme?”

Scott bit back a grin and shook his head.

“Really?” Lydia fixed Laken with an unimpressed gaze.

“Okay, maybe not.”

Lydia’s phone buzzed in her hand, the second time it buzzed Lydia pushed off the wall.

“Hey, where are you going?” Laken grabbed onto Lydia’s arm.

“I’ll be right back.” Lydia held up her phone, “Aiden wants to talk.”

“Oh, okay. _Talk_ , right. Be careful.”

Lydia nodded and ducked out of the auditorium.

Scott gently touched Laken’s wrist to get her attention, when she made eye contact, Scott pointed out Isaac and Allison on the other side of the auditorium.

The orchestra started another song with an eerie mourning sound.

Laken scanned the crowd, frowning when she spotted the backs of Aiden and Ethan’s heads, seated closer to the stage.

Stiles quietly slipped into the auditorium, sliding between Scott and Laken to quietly whisper in Scott’s ear everything that had happened with Cora.

Laken turned to point out Aiden to Scott but came face to face with Stiles’ shoulder.

“Oh.”

“We have to got stop running into each other like this.”

“Shut up.” Laken whispered, laughing. She leaned forward and tapped Scott. “Didn’t Lydia say she was going to meet Aiden?”

“I think so.”

“Well he’s still sitting over there.”

Scott turned to look in the direction Laken was pointing, face full of concern.  “I’m going talk to him.”

Stiles pulled out his phone, “I’ll text her. I’m sure she’s just in the bathroom or talking to a teacher.”

Laken winced at a shrill scream that no one else seemed to hear. She pulled on her earlobe as it rang, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge the sound.

Stiles leaned into her shoulder, “hey, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. Tinnitus.” Laken shifted as an unsettled feeling washed over her, telling her to move. “I’ll be right back.”

His eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “Tinnitus? Wait, no. I’m coming with you.” Stiles got up and followed her out of the auditorium.

Laken paced the hallway, her ear still ringing.

“Hey,” Scott stuck his head out of the door,  the rest of him following when he laid eyes on Stiles and Laken. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, she just…”

Laken stopped mid-stride. “Lydia.”

“What?” Scott and Stiles exchanged a look.

“I… I don’t know…I think I heard Lydia,”  Laken stammered

“How did you…” Stiles trailed off, looking helplessly at Scott.

“I don’t know… I just… it’s Lydia, she’s… something’s wrong.” Laken’s face scrunched up in pain and confusion.

A scream ripped through the hallway making Scott cringe and cover his ears. Laken bolted after the sound, Scott just steps behind.

“Lydia!” Laken yelled down the hallway as she ran after the sound, not sure where she was going but following instinct, “LYD!”

“Lake! Wait!” Stiles ran after the two trying to call them back. “Scott!”

Laken and Scott skidded to a stop, Stiles panting behind them.

“Thanks…for…that…guys. Really.” Stiles wheezed. “Where are we running?”

Scott’s eyes flashed red and he shook his head.

Laken bounced on her toes, looking up and down the bisecting hallways. “This way.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I… I don’t know. I just…” she nervously shook her hands out, “you know?”

“Lead the way! Go!” Scott urged her forward.

Scott took off behind Laken, Stiles protesting loudly as he followed them.

Down the hallway, just outside of Ms. Blake’s English class, stood Sheriff Stilinski with his gun aimed inside the room. The hallway seemed to stretch out before them as they ran. Sheriff Stilinski stepped into the room.

“Scott! Lydia’s in there!” Laken looked at him in panic.

Scott surged forward and skidded into the doorway.

Stiles caught Laken around the waist and pulled her back as Sheriff Stilinski’s gun fired and then flew out the classroom door.

“Okay, come on, come on,” Stiles pulled Laken along with him to the doorway.

They saw Scott launching himself at Ms. Blake and the destruction of a few desks. Blake pushed her hand at the door.

“What is she doing?!”

Stiles tried to turn Laken away from the fight.

Ms. Blake’s desk scrapped along the floor and pushed the door shut in their faces.

 “LYDIA!” “DAD?!” Laken and Stiles were yelling over each other.

Stiles and Laken pushed themselves against the closed door, trying to jerk it open or get someone inside to open it. But it remained firmly shut.

Laken started to panic, “oh my God!”

“Lake, Laken stop.” Stiles pulled Laken back from the door that she was repeatedly ramming her shoulder into. “Scott’s in there, he’ll make sure Lydia’s okay. You got him there in time. I guess all those cross country practices paid off, huh?”

“How can you be making jokes at a time like this?!” Laken ripped herself out of his grasp and tried to ram her shoulder into the door again.

“Lake, stop!” Stiles pulled her back, “you’re going to hurt yourself.”

There were more sounds of breaking furniture inside the room and a loud roar.

“Stiles, I have to get in there. Aren’t you worried about your dad?”

“Of course I am!”

Laken rammed her shoulder into the door before Stiles could stop her, wincing as she felt her shoulder pop.

“The gun, where’s the gun?” Laken clutched her shoulder and searched the floor for the Sheriff’s gun. Instead she picked up a knife, just like the one in her dreams. Laken dropped it.

“What? Was it hot?” Stiles bent down and picked it up, “oh, it’s a knife.” There was a series of gunshots from inside the classroom. “I guess he still has his gun.”

Laken was back at the door, pushing hard against it. Her feet slipping on the linoleum.

Stiles sighed and tried the doorknob then leaned against the door.

“On three, okay?”

“One…”

“Two…”

“THREE!” they counted together.

Both of them groaned as their shoulders hit the door solidly.

Then the door flew open, sending them falling through the doorway.

Stiles quickly stumbled to his feet and looked around the room. “Dad?”

“Lydia!” Laken rushed forward and pulled Lydia into her chest. “Oh god, Lyd.”

She held Lydia’s face in her hands, checking her over.

“Are you okay? Oh God, no not okay, look at you. Stiles help me get her out of this chair!”

~~~~~

Laken rubbed her shoulder uncomfortably. She had been given a sling for a bit of deep tissue bruising from ramming her shoulder into the door, but did little for the dull ache. The doctor who looked at Lydia, said that she was very lucky her shoulder hadn’t popped out of socket. The doctor hadn’t been able to do much more for her or Lydia before hurrying off into the chaos to see to patients that were coming in from Memorial.

Despite the chaos, nurses kept coming up to them and moving in and out of Lydia's room.

“Ma’am. Do you need to see a doctor?”

“No thank you.” Laken said quietly at the nurse’s shoes.

Natalie patted Laken’s knee as she answered the nurse. “She’s already been checked out, thank you.” When the nurse walked away to tend to someone else, Natalie dug a pair of painkillers out of her purse and dropped them into Laken’s palm.

Natalie Martin and Laken sat outside Lydia’s examination room in the ER. Laken’s leg would not stop bouncing, though her face remained impossibly calm. Beside her Natalie’s face was anything but calm, she was nervously pinching her hands together and her lips were held in a tightly together. Together they waited for the doctor or someone to come back with Lydia from the x-ray room. After a bit of a battle on Natalie’s part, the doctor finally convinced her that he needed to check and make sure that the attempted strangulation didn’t fracture her spine or cause any internal damage; so they had to wait for an ultrasound tech to look at Lydia’s neck too before she would be returned to them.

“Can you tell me what happened again?” Natalie asked her niece as she smoothed out her blouse, then reached to smooth out Laken’s hair.

Laken sighed, leaning away form Natalie’s hands, and prepared to run through the story for the 5th time. “We were in the auditorium sitting with Stiles and Scott, and Lydia said she needed to go to the bathroom. I offered to go with her but she said she was going to grab Allison to go with her. So she left. After a while when she didn’t comeback I got worried so I told the guys that I was going look for her. They didn’t want me wondering around on my own with everything going on so they insisted they come with me.

We found Allison in the back of the auditorium with Isaac, Lydia hadn’t asked her to go with her. So she said she’d stay in the auditorium in case we didn’t cross paths with Lydia when we went look for her, and she’d call us if she saw her.  I went look in the bathroom nearest the auditorium but she wasn’t there, I tried the next closest but that one was empty too.” Laken took a deep breath before continuing, “then we heard a scream. I knew it was Lydia, I can’t explain how I knew, but it’s Lydia. I just knew. I think you would have known, too.”

Natalie frowned, but nodded.

“So I ran after the sound, Stiles was right behind me, Scott went to get help. There was a room down the hall with it’s light on, the only room with lights. The door was shut and we could hear Lydia inside. We tried to get in but the door was locked and neither Stiles nor myself were strong enough to break it down, I guess those doors are seriously strong in case someone attacks the school, you know? And that’s all there really is.”

It was a botched version of the truth, but Laken didn’t know that the real story was much more complex with moving parts that Natalie would have trouble believing were more than fairytales. Laken hadn’t understood completely what had happened either, but she nodded when Scott and Stiles coached her through what to say. No mentioning that Lydia was going to meet Aiden, that was a no-brainer to Laken since Natalie didn’t know that Lydia was seeing him anyway. Stiles assured her he would handle the cops and his dad as long as she stuck to the story for Natalie.

Natalie nodded and placed a hand over Laken’s. “At least she’s okay.”

Laken looked up at the sound of feet fast approaching. Allison skidded around the corner, her dad and Isaac walking calmly behind her a few seconds later. Laken stood as Allison approached and collided with Laken, hugging her tightly.

“Is she okay?” Allison asked into Laken’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“She’s fine. Or at least they seem to think she’ll be fine. No damage as far as they can tell. I’m fine, just worried.”

“Your shoulder…”

“It’s fine. Just a bruise from trying to get the door open. I’ll be okay after I take a few painkillers and ice it. Or was it heat?” Laken frowned in confusion.

“It’s okay,” Allison rubbed Laken’s good shoulder.

Laken’s lower lip wobbled and her eyes flooded with tears.

“Oh,” Allison cooed and pulled her into another tight hug.

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” Laken blubbered, pulling away from Allison’s shoulder. “Go see her, I’m fine.”

Allison hesitated, but nodded and backed off. Natalie guided Allison into Lydia’s temporary room down the hall.

Chris uncomfortably took Natalie’s abandoned chair, and Isaac took Allison’s place in front of Laken. He gently guided Laken away from the door.

“What happened?”

Laken started off on the same story she told Natalie.

“No, I mean what really happened.”

So she told him, and he listened.

Allison came out of Lydia’s room looking upset but determined to do something.

She spoke gently to Laken, “Isaac and I have to go, but I promise I’ll check in on you later.”

 


	24. Till It's Hidden And Retreated

 

 

Laken bumped her hip against Lydia’s door, clutching a stack of DVDs, a pint of Gold Ribbon ice cream with two spoons balanced on top of it, and one of Lydia’s favorite board games – Scrabble.

Lydia mumbled a quiet, slightly hoarse, goodbye to whoever she was talking to on the phone and tossed the pink phone onto her bed.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Lydia responded a bit sullenly, eyes still lingering on her phone as the backlight faded off.

Laken knew that look.  She carefully climbed into Lydia’s bed, setting her pile between them and offering Lydia a spoon. Lydia took it without hesitation and pried open the pint.

Laken tapped the phone with her knee, “Jackson?”

“Mhmm.”

“How’s he doing?” Laken asked gently.

Lydia didn’t reply right away, mouth full from a caramel stripe. “He’s busy with school, they’re really rigorous with their academics and sports, of course.” Lydia sighed, scrapping her spoon over a spot of thick fudge, and said quietly “I still love him.”

Laken took her own spoonful of ice cream, “do you want my opinion?”

Lydia smiled sadly around her spoon. She stuck it in the ice cream and pulled out the Scrabble board, setting the legal pad they used to keep score on her knee. “Not really, but, I have a feeling I should hear it anyway.”

“I think you’ll always love him.” Laken pulled seven pieces from the box. “I think that every time you move on or at least attempt to, your heart is going to hurt. You’re going to think about him. And you know what, my little mermaid, maybe one day you’ll come back together. But it’s going to take a lot of serendipity and fate. Unless you become sea foam. Always avoid that option.”

Lydia hummed, and flipped down her first word, ‘avenge’. “Time heals all wounds.”

“But you might still have a scar.” Laken countered. “How’d he take… uh… you know.” She gestured at Lydia’s neck. The mark was angry and red, but the doctors assured them that there was no damage done to Lydia’s larynx.

“He’s pissed.” Lydia shrugged but touched her neck, watching the board as Laken placed her letters, tripling her word score off Lydia’s. “But he’s glad I’m okay, and that he’s not around this town anymore. Speaking of, shouldn’t you still be wearing that sling? What happened to ‘I’m a self-preservationist?’”

“That flew out the door when you were in trouble. Besides, it’s fine, as long as I’m not lifting my arm over my head, it’s just a little tender.”

Lydia frowned but let it go.

They played Scrabble, eating spoonfuls of ice cream between arguments about spelling. They even had to consult the a dictionary to prove validity of some of the more dubious plays to each other.

“It is too a word.” Lydia sighed, pointing at her most recent play ‘pluvia.’

“It’s not an English word and it’s not in the English dictionary, therefore it is not a word in the eyes of the Scrabble rules. It says right here,” Laken wiggled her phone screen, displaying the official Scrabble rules, under Lydia’s nose, “that ‘Any word found in one of the top five standard English dictionaries can be played in Scrabble.’ So foreign words are not allowed on the board unless they are commonly used in the English language, and thus appear in a standard dictionary.”

“It also says you can’t add letters to an existing word, but we let that one slide all the time!”

“Latin is not exactly standard language, Lyd! Besides, Words With Friends accepts when you just add a ‘s’ or an ‘ing’ so it should be fine with Sir Scrabble.”

Laken’s phone buzzed from under the lid of the Scrabble box. She cast an uncertain glance at Lydia who just rolled her eyes.

“Just answer it.”

“Hello.” She didn’t bother looking at the called id.

“ _Lake_ _, oh thank god. Okay, how’s Lydia? Was there any damage?”_

Laken cast a glance at Lydia pretending not to be listening in on Laken’s conversation.

“She’s fine enough. They said there wasn’t any damage done, but she’s going to be sore for a little while.”

“ _Good._ ” Stiles breathed out a sigh of relief. “ _Because we have bigger problems_.”

“Like what?”

“ _Can I come over? I’d rather say this face to face_.”

“Uh, hold on.” Laken moved the phone away from her mouth. “Lydia? Stiles wants to come over, are you up to that?”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Let him. He’s seen me worse.”

Laken sighed but nodded and righted her phone to confirm with Stiles. “Yeah it’s fine. Just don’t ring the doorbell. Aunt Nat’s probably sleeping. I mean, it took a lot of convincing to get her to go to sleep so she took a little something for her nerves and to help her sleep so she’s probably out of it, but just to be sure.”

“ _Right, I’ll text you when I get there_.”

With that Stiles hung up and Laken locked her screen before placing her phone down on the duvet.

“When has Stiles seen you worse?” Laken raised an eyebrow at her sister. “You never even let Jackson see you without at least a eyeliner.”

“Remember Winter Formal? When I was mauled by a…” Lydia trailed off.

Laken, taking it as the memory still being sensitive for Lydia, grabbed her hand. “It’s okay. You don’t have to…”

“Stiles is the one who found me.” Lydia barreled on, “he called Jackson and got him to take me to the hospital.”

 “Why didn’t Stiles take you himself?”

“He…” Lydia paused, “he was…dragged off to take care of something else.”

“How’d you find out it was him and not Jackson?”

A sad sort of smile crossed Lydia’s lips, “I was clinging on to consciousness. I could hear him. Calling Jackson. Telling me to stay awake. Later Jackson told me, when I was finally out of the hospital, after the episode of wondering around in the woods, naked.”

 “Well I’m glad he found you.”

“Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Another chapter. Unless something happens in editing where a chapter becomes longer or shorter than planned, there are four chapters left.


	25. Run Boy, Run Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long. it's been rewritten at least three times.

_And I can't say it's what you know_

_But you've known it the whole time_

_Yeah, you've known it the whole time_

_Maybe next year I'll have no time_

_To think about the questions to address_

_Am I the one to try to stop the fire?_

~Two Door Cinema Club, “[What You Know](https://youtu.be/MDw_2NaCI6A)"

* * *

 

 

“You look like shit.” Laken said to Stiles after she opened the door for him.

He smiled ruefully, “thanks. I’ve been up all night working on my look just for you.”

“Aw, you shouldn’t have.” She held a hand to her heart.

Stiles snorted.                                

Laken motioned inside with her head. “Lydia’s upstairs.”

Stiles nodded and moved past Laken into the house, accidentally brushing her shoulder.

Her jaw clinched at the pinch of pain and she did a horrible job of hiding a wince from him as she closed the door.

“Are you okay?” Stiles hit the heel of his hand lightly against his forehead, “your shoulder. I forgot. Tonight’s been sort of a blur.  How bad is it?”

“It’s fine. Uh, bruising. Just really sore. I’m supposed to be wearing a sling.”

“A sling?” Stiles’ eyebrows shot up.

“Yeah,” she shrugged with her good shoulder and started up the staircase, “it’s cumbersome.”

“But…”

Laken stopped on the fifth stair and looked over to where Stiles still stood. “Come on, Stilinski. You implied it was important.”

“That’s true. I did imply,” he nodded.

Laken started up the stairs again, “Lydia’s probably wondering what’s taking so long.”

Stiles hiked up the stairs two at a time to catch up with her before she made it to the landing.

“So, uh, how was the hospital?”

“Busy. And yet somehow, they managed to ask if I needed to see a doctor every five minutes but still put off Lydia’s exam for three hours.”

“Rough. Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“See a doctor? For your shoulder? You said it was just a bruise and you’re supposed to have it in a sling, how bad is it? Could it have been a fracture?”

“Stiles,” Laken held up a hand to stop his thought spiral. “I said I’m fine. The medic in the ambulance looked at it while we were heading over there, said it was just deep tissue bruising and that I’m lucky it didn’t pop out of socket because ramming into a door the wrong way could do that to someone. And then I got a lecture about ramming myself into doorways because when adrenaline wears off there will be pain. Blah-blah-blah, stuff about women lifting cars off babies.”

“Good,” Stiles nodded slowly. “But next time, be careful.”

“Hey, that was careful.” Laken pushed open Lydia’s door. “I safely rammed myself into a door without breaking anything.”

“And now she has a boo-boo shoulder to prove it,” Lydia cooed through pouted lips.

“I’m not a baby.”

“Sure,” Lydia agreed, teasingly. She turned her attention to Stiles, who was standing somewhat awkwardly in the doorway. “What’s so important that you had to come here so late?”

“Or early, depends on how you look at it,” he attempted to joke. Stiles pulled on a loose string at the hem of his plaid shirt. “Uh, we need to tell her. Everything. I know you thought it might be safer not to, but, it’s getting worse. And everything tonight…”

Laken looked between the two of them with narrowed eyes. “What?”

Lydia sat up a little straighter against her headboard. “Yeah, I know.”

“What kind of secret agent bullshit is this?” Laken asked rhetorically.

“Lake, sit.” Lydia pointed to the edge of the bed. “There’s a lot more going on than you realize. We need to explain what happened tonight.”

“You know the last time someone tried to tell me something like this I threw up on a pair of $700 patent leather shoes. Do you really want to risk that? Oh God. Is this where you tell me that you’re pregnant? Because Lydia, we watched _Mean Girls_ and that one Lifetime movie about teen pregnancy, we both know that sex leads to pregnancy and you _will_ die.”

Lydia shook her head, “no one’s pregnant. And before you ask, no one’s secretly dating, well anymore anyway that was last year.”

“Then what the hell is going on? Is someone dead? Is it about Ms. Blake? Did she get arrested?”

“Sort of.” Lydia looked to Stiles for help.

“I’m trying to figure out where to start.”

“A good story has a beginning, middle, and end, though not always in that order. Or so the saying goes. So start with one of those.”

“Uh…” Stiles chewed on his thumbnail.

“How about you start with Ms. Blake? You said this was about her?” Laken offered.

“Okay.” Stiles nodded, “she’s….evil.”

“Uh, okay,” Laken said slowly.

“No, she’s really truly evil.”

“Well she did try to strangle Lydia.”

“Why don’t you just start from the beginning, Stiles?” Lydia said flatly, it was clear from the way her lips pursed that she was quickly losing patience.

“Okay, I can do that. Uh. So,” Stiles grappled with his words, “the last day of winter break, last year, uh, my dad got a call about a body that a pair of joggers in the woods.”

“Stiles.” Lydia warned.

“Look, do you want to do this?” Stiles raised an eyebrow at Lydia. When she didn’t answer he continued, “yeah, um, I listened to his calls, still do, and there’s the old police scanner I have in the Jeep but, uh. So, dead body! But it wasn’t just any dead body, it was half of a dead body, and they were going hunt for the other half. I went to Scott’s and dragged him out into the Preserve with me, because he always complained that nothing exciting happens around here. Uh, to summarize, I got caught by my dad, Scott hid behind a tree and had to walk home. But he got bit that night.  Turns out he was bit by Peter Hale.”

“Who?”

“The Hale house fire?”

“Oh. That.”

Stiles nodded, “yeah, he was in that, so no one really thought that he would be sneaking out of his hospital bed every night and killing people.”

“What?!”

“It took a little time, but we figured out Scott was a werewolf! Yay!” Stiles cheered sarcastically.

Laken blinked hard. Her voice pitched, “um. What?”

“Yeah. So Scott’s a werewolf. Peter bit him, and turned him. Werewolves are real.”

Laken slowly looked at Lydia, “you can’t believe that.”

Lydia shrugged, looking slightly apologetic. 

Laken made a short high pitched humming noise, while silently asking if she was serious.

“It’s true.” Lydia nodded, “I didn’t believe it at first either. I thought they were all crazy.”

A tense silence followed. Stiles gnawing on his thumbnail.

Then, Laken let out a short laugh. “Wait, are you guys pulling my leg?  Because of clinical lycanthropy. I mean it’s pretty rare, but is that what’s wrong with Scott? He’s not abnormally hairy, but then again I haven’t really paid much attention to that.”

“What?” Stiles sputtered, “No. I mean mythical, full-moon, control the shift, werewolves.”

“And I’m a wizard. My Hogwarts letter just got a little lost.”

“I’m serious!” Stiles stressed. “Lydia, help me out here.”

“Part two of the condensed version of the story is that Jackson got bitten by Derek Hale, after Derek killed Peter and became the Alpha. Jackson turned into a kanima, then a werewolf after he was killed.”

Laken looked at Lydia, uncomprehending. “Is it just an everyday occurrence for people to die and come back to life here?”

Stiles shrugged, “sort of.”       

“This is ludicrous.”

Stiles ran a hand down his face. “Look, Ms. Blake has been killing people, to death.”

“Redundant, Stiles.” Laken frowned at him and turned to Lydia. “Didn’t I have a dream earlier this semester about Ms. Blake performing human sacrifices?”

“You what?” Stiles sputtered.

Lydia shrugged, “I think so.”

“I’m not asking, I’m telling you.”

Lydia rolled her eyes, “yeah you did.”

“And what did Allison say again?” Laken half-teased. Her face paled, “oh god. That dream. I couldn’t breathe. And she… you… oh God.”

“Dream? What dream?” Stiles interjected, wild eyed as he looked between the two of them.

“It’s just a dream I had at the beginning of the school year, I don’t know, it was anxiety manifesting itself in an easy to cope format.” Laken shrugged. “I had another one, the night some of the med staff went missing from the hospital? I’ve been under a lot of stress I guess, and sometimes I get migraines, usually I have some off the wall dream while I sleep it off.”

“Okay, no that’s not normal.”

“Can we not discuss this? It’s probably just a coincidence or something,” Laken looked uncomfortable. “What were you about to say about Ms. Blake?”

Stiles was momentarily dazed. “Uh, right. So remember that series of bodies that Lydia found? Yeah, Blake is the one who killed them.”

Laken’s fingertips pressed against her forehead. “What is in the water here?”

“So the first three were virgins.” Stiles continued. “and I thought that maybe she as just killing virgins, so naturally I was very worried about that, but then she started killing non-virgins Then she’s moved on to warriors or people with some sort of military connection. Healers, that was the night that the doctors were taken when they were on their way to the hospital. And turns out that the next three were teachers of some sort, or philosophers. Turns out she’s following a five-fold-knot, taking three from each in some sort of ritual. So now, we think she’s after Guardians.”

“Hold up,” Laken looked at Lydia, “so I could have died at some point during this and you weren’t going to warn me?”

“Huh?” Stiles looked between them, lost again.

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Seriously? I thought you…”

“No.”

“Well how am I supposed to know?”

Stiles’ mouth dropped open. “Wait, are you saying…”

“Oh my god,” Laken groaned, face flushing. “Look, I don’t want to discuss the status of my sex life.”

“Or lack there of.” Lydia said tartly.

“It’s not like I’m some sort of special virgin snowflake! It’s not like… I just haven’t…”

“It’s just… I mean, you’re related to… and we just assumed…” Stiles floundered.

“Oh my god,” Laken groaned. “Stiles, I get it, I do. But, do you know what they say about people who assume? ‘When you assume, you make an _ass_ out of _u_ and _me_.’

“Sorry.”

Laken shrugged, desperate to move on. “I’m surprised she went after that definition of virgins. Typically in ancient tradition, virgin just meant that their blood had never been shed in a prior ritual. It’s an interesting reading, but not an uncommon one. As someone who was masquerading as an English teacher it’s surprising that she would take it at modern face value.”

Stiles looked at Laken with bewildered amusement. “How do you even know this?”

“I don’t know. I read about it somewhere once, probably,” Laken explained with a nonchalant shrug. “So, Guardians?”

“Right!” Stiles started pacing around the room. “So she’s taken Scott’s mom, and my dad, guardians as in parent or guardian.”

“Again, weirdly literal choice for an English teacher to make,” Laken interjected. “Guardians can be parents, yes, the term is usually legal guardians and doesn’t always encompass parents but sometimes other relatives or whomever a minor is in the custody of. But they can also be keepers or defenders, like temple guardians or guardians of knowledge.”

Lydia made a face, “lay off the Percy Jackson books.”

Laken made the same face back and gave Lydia the middle finger.

“Anyway,” Stiles said loudly. “Blake must have painted ‘Argent’ on the elevator doors while I was stuck in there, so it’s a safe bet that she’s after him next. Now Argent is arming himself to fight back but…” he shrugged and sat down on the edge of Lydia’s bed.

Lydia pulled a pillow to her chest and asked Stiles what happened at the hospital for him to get stuck in an elevator in the first place and Stiles launched into a detailed and animated recap of events.

“So Scott’s with them now? This pack of alphas? He took Deucalion up on his offer?”

Lydia looked at Stiles in shock. She slowly shook her head in denial. “I don’t believe it. Scott can’t really be with them. He can’t be.”

Stiles sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “You didn’t see the look on his face. It was the same one I saw on my mother when the doctors told her there was nothing they could do. It was just total hopelessness.”

“Hopelessness leads to desperation.” Laken added softly. “But…I don’t think Scott would flip sides like that for no reason, he’s too loyal to suddenly abandon everything you’ve been working for. Desperation can make people do some out of character things but…I don’t get that vibe from Scott. He wouldn’t abandon people like that. I think he has a plan. A dubious plan, but I think he’s got faith in it.” She scratched at her brown and looked down, “I don’t know. I don’t know Scott that well. But from everything I’ve heard about him and witnessed, it just doesn’t seem like something he would do.”

Stiles let out a heavy breath. “Well he did.”

“Then, what do we do?” asked Lydia, tossing up her hands. “I mean I get that I’m like some kind of human Geiger counter for death, but I don’t know how to turn it on and off yet. Al I know is she tried to kill me because of…” Lydia trailed off, her expression going from thinking to knowing.

“What? Lydia, What?”

“Share with the class.”

“When she called me a banshee. She was surprised by it. What if that’s not why she tried to kill me?”

“Okay. I mean, this has almost nothing to do with dealing with Scott’s alleged betrayal but let’s follow the thought.”  Laken said, looking at Lydia indecorously.

“Then why did she?”

Laken glanced at Stiles, who was wearing a worried expression and chewing on his thumbnail. He shrugged.

“Well, that’s what we need to find out.”

“Soooo… no ideas then?” Laken asked with a touch of subtle annoyance that Lydia didn’t seem to catch.

Lydia shook her head. Laken let out a low groan and let herself fold over on the duvet. She head-butted Stiles’ knee. they both yelped in pain and let out a string of curses.

“Maybe we should reconvene later.” Laken said, holding her hand to her forehead. “Sleep on it. This is, uh, a lot to take in.”

“Yeah.” Stiles nodded, clutching his knee. “Sleep on it. Lydia, maybe you’ll think of something. Or some way to find out why she was after you.”

Stiles stood, wincing as he straightened his legs.

Laken stood aswell, “I’ll walk you down. Uh, Lyd, do you want me to come sleep in here with you?”

Lydia shook her head. “Nah, I’ll be fine. Goodnight.”

Stiles waved, “night.”

Laken closed the door softly behind her and turned to face Stiles in the hallway.

“So.” She rocked back on her heels awkwardly. “Um, you know if you want to… you could stay. It’s late and you really do look exhausted.”

Stiles ran his fingers through his hair. “I should probably get to the Argent’s. Help them and stuff.”

“No, right, yeah.” Laken led the way down the stairs. “You might want to ice your knee. I’ve been told I have a hard head.”

“Well, I’m impressed.” Stiles commented, shuffling his feet awkwardly. “You’re taking this pretty well.”

Laken swayed slightly, “well, I figure that either you’re all completely mental, or something’s actually going on. So I’m going to go along with it until someone fucks up.”

“Good strategy.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay? It’s late, and you look exhausted.”

Stiles shrugged, “yeah. But I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Maybe a few hours of sleep will make everything seem less…strange.”

They stopped in front of the door and stared at each other, unsure of how to end the night.

“Goodnight.” Stiles hesitated, then stepped forward and pulled Laken in for a hug. “Get some sleep.”

“You too. Don’t stay up all night again.” Laken said, stepping back

Stiles nodded and fiddled with his keys. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I’ll try not to.”

“Promise me you’ll get some sleep.”

“I promise I’ll take a nap at the Argents.”

Laken stuck out her pinky. Stiles laughed.

“Really?”

Laken nodded, shaking her fist at him. Stiles rolled his eyes, smiling all the while as he wrapped his pinky around hers. Laken kissed her thumb, then nodded at him to do the same. Stiles looked at her blankly.

“Do it.”

Stiles kissed his own thumb and raised his eyebrows at her, “now what?”

She pressed their thumbs together. “Now you can’t break the promise. It’s sealed.” Laken nodded seriously.

Stiles grinned and nodded. “Gotcha.”

“Drive safe.”

“Thanks.”

Laken locked the front door behind Stiles, and retreated to the window to watch him start up the Jeep and back out of the driveway.

As soon as the taillights were out of sight, Laken let out a deep breath and hit her head lightly against the wall.

“Oh my god, what was I thinking? Why did I do that?” She mumbled as she lightly tapped her forehead against the wall.

“You know what,” Lydia’s voice carried from the top of the stairs, “I’m not that tired. And you’re going to end up with a headache if you keep doing that.”

“Lydia.”

Lydia stopped at the foot of the stairs. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner. I just wanted you to have a little normalcy and adjust to a new caliber of normal without having a system overload.”

“I’m not even convinced this is all real. I’m just going with it.”

“Laken.” Lydia sighed.

“I want wine. Do you want some?” Laken asked over her shoulder as she went into the kitchen. “I think your mom still has that Pink Mascato somewhere.”

“You can’t have any. You took pain killers remember?” Lydia chided, following her into the kitchen. She took a seat on one of the barstools and rested her chin in her palm.

“Shit.” Laken muttered. She dug through the cabinets. “How about a cake? You want a cake?

“You know I wasn’t going to say anything because it was never a good time, but God,” Lydia breathed, “you have the mouth of a sailor.”

“Yeah well, my mom didn’t follow me around telling me to act like a lady.”

“Touché.”

Laken wagged a set of polka doted mixing bowls in Lydia’s direction. “So… cake?”

Lydia tilted her head. “What kind?”

“What kind do you want?”


	26. You Know That You See It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i should apologize for this taking forever and a day, but things happen, like: Riverdale (another show with murder boards!!) + life things + writer's block + writing other things.  
> anyway, this isn't even the full chapter that i had planned and it's a little choppier than i would like for it to be. a little warning that, yes, this is the chapter that Stiles has /that/ panic attack.

_Come back down to my knees_

_Gotta get back, gotta get free_

_Come back down to my knees_

_Be like them, lean back and breathe_

_Come back down to my knees_

_Gotta get back, gotta get free_

_Come back down to my knees_

_Be like them, lean back and breathe_

~Glass Animals, “[Life Itself](https://youtu.be/9lUfunQW84U)”

___________________________________________

Lydia went upstairs well before Laken put the cake in the oven and was asleep before the oven came to temperature.

Laken finished the cake, a simple vanilla sponge with a lemon buttercream frosting, and started making fresh donuts.

Lydia came down stairs at the crack of dawn looking fresh and rested. Laken, on the other hand, was still awake though barely.

“Mornin’” Laken yawned widely, covering her mouth with her hand. She removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes.

Lydia put a pot of coffee on. “Has mom come in yet?”

“Nuh-uh,” Laken managed through another yawn.

Lydia pointed at the coffee pot and set a go-mug on the counter.  “Coffee. Drink some when it’s done. Put ice in it, chocolate syrup, sugar, I don’t care, but drink some. Wash your face with cold water. Use the pink concealer from that pallet under your eyes to cover the dark circles.”

“First, I know what the pink concealer is for, it’s my pallet. The yellow works for that too. Two, do I really look that bad?”

“Pink works better for your color. Did you sleep at all?”

“Uh.”

“Exactly, and you look it.” Lydia frowned, “actually, you look like you’ve been on a three day bender.”

“You’re so nice in the mornings.”

“Coffee, face, concealer.” Lydia repeated. “And you’re one to talk.”

“I made donuts.” Laken offered weakly.

Lydia sighed, “I’m going get ready for school.”

~~

Natalie flitted around on edge, pacing up and down the second floor landing outside Lydia’s room till Laken surfaced dressed for the day. At that point Natalie made her way into her daughter’s room, as if the sight of Laken up and about was a good enough indicator that Lydia would be too.

Laken made breakfast after her fourth cup of iced coffee and waited to see if Lydia would in fact surface in time for school.

~

“Ready to leave?” Lydia asked, coming up to where Laken sat doing some last minute homework at the kitchen table.

Laken caught sight of the bruise circling Lydia’s neck and raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”

Lydia took a deep breath through her nose and nodded, “yeah.”

Laken nodded, closing her notebook. “You sure?”

Lydia nodded again.

“People are going to talk.”

Oh they were going to do more than that, both girls knew. They knew people were going to speculate why that mark encircled Lydia’s neck, who had put it there, and when. People at school were going to make up things and pretend to know the facts.

Lydia nodded surely and simply said  “I survived.”

A slow grin spread on Laken’s face. “Okay. I’ve got your back.”

“I know.”

“Good. I’m driving!”

“No way.” Lydia laughed. “Stiles is picking us up.”

Laken, grinning, rolled her eyes. “Fine. Have it your way. But only because you have a boo-boo.”

“Oh, here.” Lydia dug a small book out of her purse and handed it to Laken.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a bestiary, it… it was the Argent’s but it was in Archaic Latin so I translated it.” Lydia watched Laken run her fingers over the cover. “I figure it might help you to get familiar with this whole… new world.”

“Thank you.” Laken tucked it into her own bag.

~~

Lydia climbed into the passengers seat, leaving Laken standing in the open doorway.

“What?” Lydia looked at Laken, unperturbed.

“Um. Do I just jog alongside the Jeep then?”

Lydia raised an eyebrow.

Stiles opened his door and pulled forward the seat. “Come on.”

~~

Danny found Lydia the second she entered the school.

“Danny! Hey.” Stiles nodded at him.

Danny ignored him, nodded in greeting to Laken and stood in front of Lydia.

He crouched slightly to examine her neck, “Blake sure did a number on you.”

Lydia shrugged, “I’m fine. That’s all that matters.”

“Don’t worry, Danny.” Laken chirped. “We’re just going to tell everyone that Lydia’s into rough S&M.”

Stiles made a choking noise and pounded himself on the chest. Danny laughed.

Lydia backhanded Laken’s shoulder and shook her head, “I’m going see if Aiden is here.”

“Everyone already knows what happened even if they weren’t there last night,” Danny commented as he watched Lydia stride down the hall and disappear in the throng.

“Yeah, I figured.”  Laken sighed, “this seems like the type of town where everyone knows everything within ten minutes of it happening.

“Well not everything,” Danny shrugged. “You’d be surprised what people don’t know even though it’s happening under their noses.”

“So, oblivious unless it’s hot goss. And I’m sure the story gets amped up each time it’s told. Ah, the glorious grapevine, it’s one massive game of telephone nine times out of ten.”

Danny snorted, “yeah. Sounds right.”

“How are _you_ holding up? I heard about the piano thing. Man, am I glad that I was trying to break down Blake’s door when that happened.”

“Yeah, it’s, uh, not something I’m going to forget.”

“Aw, Danny,” Stiles started. He moved to clap Danny on the shoulder, but Danny sidestepped out of the way.

“Anyway,” Danny shrugged his backpack higher on his shoulder, “I’m going to go find Ethan, if Aiden’s here then he is too.”

~

“Could Aiden just text me back already.” Lydia sighed at her phone and shoved it back into her bag.

“Seriously, Lydia.”

Lydia didn’t reply, she grabbed Laken’s arm, pulling her backwards down the hall.

“Stiles!” Lydia called out to him. He stopped and waited for the two girls to catch up to him, fidgeting incessantly.

Laken tripped over her own feet trying to twist herself around while Lydia gripped her bicep.

Once they caught up to Stiles, he joined them walking down the hall.

“Heard anything?” Stiles eyes scanned the hallway restlessly.

“Aiden’s not texting me back.” Lydia sighed.

In front of her Stiles stilled, eyes glassing over and unfocused on a spot down the hall. He teetered back and forth, trying to decide which way to go.

“Okay, maybe we should-” Laken started.

Stiles phone buzzed in his pocket, making her fall silent incase it was important. He yanked it out of his pocket, rumpling his shirt in the process and catching part of it on a buckle on his backpack strap. His face sagged as he read the screen.

“What?” Laken took a step closer.

“Oh God. What is it now?” Lydia said tiredly.

“It’s from Isaac, Jennifer… She has Allison’s father.  She took him.”

Laken felt light headed at the news and momentarily dizzy with the surge of fear and shock that coursed through her.

“She’s has all three of them now.” Stiles’ let out an unsteady breath as he shoved his phone back into his pocket with shaking hands.

“There’s still time. We have to still have time right?” Lydia puzzled out, glancing from Laken to Stiles briefly for confirmation before she started pacing in small circles.

Laken didn’t give her any. She was watching Stiles closely. His breathing continued to hitch in small shallow gasps.  When neither answered, Lydia stopped pacing and eyed Stiles cautiously.

“Stiles? Are you okay?”

Stiles started to shake his head and as he did he tilted slightly to the side.

“No.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“He’s having a panic attack or at least hyperventilating.” Laken frowned at her supposedly genius sister. She cautiously

~~slowly~~ put her hands on Stiles’ arms to get his attention and help him focus.

Stiles nodded, breathing hitching faster. “I think… I think I’m having… a panic… attack.”

“Okay. Okay.” Laken took a deep breath, more for her own benefit than Stiles’ but he did try to mimic her.

Stiles eyes locked helplessly on Laken’s and she saw how dilated his pupils were.

“We need to get him somewhere else. Out of the hallway.” Lydia rushed, looking frazzled.

“Where? Outside?”

Lydia wrung her hands in indecision. “The locker room.”

Lydia hurried off down the hallway, leading the way. Laken moved slower, guiding Stiles. The locker room wasn’t far off from where they had been stalled, but it took a few seconds to get Stiles moving.  Lydia held open the door for them as Stiles stumbled through it.

“Just think about something else. Anything else.” Lydia started throwing out suggestions in desperation.

“Like…?” Stiles wheezed out.

Laken tried a calmer approach. “Stiles, listen to me. Okay. Listen to my voice and…”

“Happy things! Good things! Friends, family… I mean… not family.” Lydia rattled on, cutting off Laken’s momentary break through. “Oh God. Okay. Just try to slow your breathing.”

“Lydia!” Laken gapped at her.

“I can’t… I can’t.” Stiles sputtered helplessly. His breathing was ragged as he sagged against the locker.

“Um try counting back from one hundred?” Lydia tried again, helplessly. Then she started counting.

“Stiles, please.” Laken tried again, speaking in a slow and calm voice. “I want you to breathe with me. Okay? Can we try that?”

Laken tried to block out Lydia’s counting. Stiles nodded, sweating. He doubled over, bending into his knees, clutching his chest.

Lydia let out a shrill “oh God.”

“Stiles. Look at me. Stiles. Breath in, one two three four, and out, one two three four.” Laken tried her hardest to keep her voice low and steady.

“Kiss him,” Lydia hissed.

“What?!”  Laken cried out shrilly, turning to Lydia and ruining Stiles’ progress.

“Kiss him. He needs to hold his breath.” Lydia insisted.

“You don’t kiss someone to get them to hold their breath!” Laken whispered shrilly. Stiles’ shallow breathing had picked up and was getting worse.

“Sit down, and shut up.”

Lydia’s expression soured and she sat on a bench nearby with a huff. ~~~~

Laken slowly held up her open hands to Stiles. “okay?”

He nodded. She gently took one of his fists in her hand and massaged it till he opened his hand.

Laken held his hand loosely, pressing her thumb lightly into his palm.

“When you feel my thumb press down like this,” she pressed her thumb down against the center of his palm, “I want you to take a slow breath in, okay, you don’t need to take a deep breath just try to breathe slowly, and when the pressure is gone, you exhale. Is that okay?”

“What about-”

“Lydia.” Laken warned lowly.

Lydia crossed her arms and let out another puff of air.

“Okay, Stiles. I want you to think about five things that you see. Can you do that for me? Don’t name them out loud. Just identify them and breathe.” Laken started with prolonged hand squeezes, forcing Stiles to take longer slower breaths.

Stiles’ eyes jetted back and forth like a caged animal as he tried to connect and focus with the things around him.

“Try not to get overwhelmed. One thing at a time till you get five,” Laken said soothingly. When Stiles’ eyes met hers again she continued. “Now, think about four things you feel. Feel the cold lockers, the concrete floor, feel my hand putting pressure on yours.”

Stiles’ face became less panicked as he breathed in time with the pressure on his hand and he focused on Laken’s voice.

“Think about three things you hear. Hear the sound of my breathing, calm and even.” She continued to speak slowly, giving Stiles time to think and keeping her voice at an even measure. “Think about two things you smell, even if it is this stinky locker room sweat. And one thing you taste.”

It took a minute for Stiles’ breathing to slow from the ragged gasps back into measured breaths, but the color had finally returned to his face and he no longer wore the look of wide-eyed terror. Laken continued to guide Stiles’ breathing, watching him carefully until she was sure he was breathing normally on his own before diverting her attention to a fretting and pouting Lydia.

“You do not kiss someone when they’re having a full blown panic attack, Lydia.” Laken rounded on Lydia. “That’s the wrong time for that! It’s not cute! Mild anxiety kissing - _maybe_ if it’s like being excessively worried about something, but not when he was that far into it!”

“Thank you.” Stiles interjected.

Laken turned back to him, her shoulder sagged. He looked from Lydia to Laken with appreciation.

“Thanks.” He nodded slowly, wiping away sweat from his forehead. “That was really smart.”

Lydia let out a breathy laugh. Laken let out a closed mouth scream of frustration. Stiles’ clammy hand gripped hers and gently squeezed it.

“That was really smart.” He said, eyes on Lydia.

Laken resisted the urge to roll her eyes till they fell out of her head.

“I just read it somewhere. And if I was really smart I’d tell you how to sign up for a few sessions with our guidance counselor.”

“If you were really smart you wouldn’t suggest kissing people when they’re indisposed.” Laken muttered venomously under her breath.

Stiles hand squeezed hers again, but his eyes stayed on Lydia. “Morrell.”

“She knows more than you’d expect.” Lydia nodded, sagely.

“Yeah…” Stiles agreed, a distant look in his eyes. “Yeah, she does.”

Stiles started to push himself up, wobbling as he got to his feet.

“Stiles.” Laken stood quickly, pressing a hand to his chest. “Maybe you should slow down. Drink some water.”

“No.” He shook his head, still unsteady on his feet. “This is life or death, we have to move.”

“Stiles,” Laken protested.

“We have to go.” He took a few unstable steps.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Laken grabbed onto Stiles’ arms to steady him. Lydia hovered at his shoulder. “Stiles. Please, take a second. You’re going to have another attack if you don’t.”

“But…” Stiles started with no doubt a long list of reasons.

“Whatever is going to happen is going to happen, if you don’t completely calm down now, you’ll end up with way worse in a little while and then you’re no help to anyone. If you start hyperventilating again you’re probably going to end up passing out. Then what use is that brain of yours going to be for however long your body decides to take a break? Your dad is okay.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No. Maybe not. But I have a feeling that he’s fine and you’re going to figure it out in time. Nobody wants any parents to die. Nobody. But you can’t work yourself up again.”

“We have to go to Morrell.” Stiles took another staggering step.

“Okay. Fine. Hold on.” Laken put one hand up to stop him. Stiles opened his mouth to protest. The other pulled her backpack around and dug out a pink water bottle. She shoved it into Stiles’ hand. “Drink some of this.”

“What is it?”

“Strawberry flavored water. It has sugar and electrolytes, but it’s mostly just filtered water. Drink.”

“She’s right, you know. It might help.” Lydia nodded, hovering at Laken’s shoulder.

“You’ve been, like, zero help,” Laken barely turned her head toward Lydia. Lydia held up her hands and took a step back.

Stiles hesitated but took a sip anyway. He downed half the bottle on his second go, then he capped it and handed it back to Laken.

“Okay, now we go find Morrell.”

Laken scanned his face and nodded. “Well, your eyes aren’t dilated anymore. Okay, now we go find Morrell.”

“Where did you learn that? The breathing-counting thing.”

“I don’t know. The counting thing is a grounding exercise. I learned it when we did a mediation unit in P.E. last year. It was only one class, but it stuck. And it’s easy to do.”

 


	27. Follow Every Passage Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise? my current work schedule is unpredictable at best, so it's been rough to actually sit down and write, but today was a "snow" day and all my plans for the day were cancelled due to road hazards.  
>  apologies that it's a little rough, it's been a while. as for the rest of the story, i had originally planned 30 chapters, and it might still end there, but it also may end up being longer.

_If we go down then we go down together_

_They'll say you could do anything_

_They'll say that I was clever_

_If we go down then we go down together_

_We'll get away with everything_

_Let's show them we are better_

~The Chainsmokers, “Paris”

___________________________________________

Lydia tossed open the door to Ms. Morrell’s office. Stiles skirted between Lydia and Laken before the door could fully open.

“You are so lucky the secretary isn’t here.” Laken muttered as the door made a loud banging noise.

Lydia rolled her eyes.

“Hey, you cant just burst in here like some kind of deranged superhero squad!” came a sharp cry from the corner.

The three turned to see Danielle sitting in the plastic chair across from Morrell’s desk with an angry expression on her face.

“You here for Ms. Morrell?” Stiles accosted her.

Laken winced and mumbled, “what an idiot,” under her breath.

Danielle was quick to retort, “no. I thought this was gym class.”

Lydia shot Laken a quick glare when she let out a snort, and turned to face Danielle, “sweetheart, we’re not in the mood for funny. Do you know where she is?”

Laken bit her tongue again, it was obvious to no one, except her apparently, that if Morrell was around then Danielle wouldn’t be waiting for her here.

Danielle half rose from her seat to meet Lydia’s eyelevel. “If I did, I wouldn’t have been waiting here for twenty minutes. So how about you three back out the door and wait your turn.”

“Danielle…” Laken started.

Lydia cut her off. “We’re not here for a session.”

“Well I am, and I’ve got some serious issues to work on.”

“Guys, Danie-.”

“You’re Danielle.” Stiles’ mouth dropped open, “you’re Heather’s best friend.”

“Uh, hey, guys.”

Danielle scoffed, “I _was_ Heather’s best friend. We’ve been working on that issue three times a week.”

Lydia pursed her lips and frowned. “Hold on. Did you say Morrell’s twenty minutes late.”

Danielle nodded, crossing her arms defiantly. “And I don’t know why either. She’s always on time.”

Lydia pursed her lips and turned to Stiles. “I was seeing her at the beginning of the semester. She was never late. Not even a minute.”

 “HELLO!!!” Laken raised her voice. “that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”

Lydia, Stiles, and Danielle turned their eyes to her.

“If Morrell’s twenty minutes late, she’s not coming.”

“She’s not late. She’s missing.”

Laken’s mouth dropped open for a second. “Oh you guys are giving me a headache.”

Lydia turned her back completely on Danielle, “what if we’re not the only ones who think she knows something?”

“I’m getting a migraine,” Laken grumbled. She went to rest her forehead against Stiles’ shoulder but he moved toward Morrell’s desk the second after she made contact.

“Then I want to know what she knows,” he mumbled as he started riffling through the papers strewn across Morrell’s desk and inside her drawers.

“What are you two doing?” Danielle spoke up, sounding aghast as Lydia joined Stiles in pillaging.

Laken pressed three fingers to her eyebrow and shook her head, “trust me, Danielle, you’re better off not knowing, or trying to know. You’d save yourself a world of headache.”

Danielle snorted, but the small smile on her face died when she saw what Stiles had found. “Those files are private!”

Lydia’s lip curled, “she’s kind of right.”

Laken looked over her hand. “Kind of?”

“Here’s yours.” Stiles muttered, handing Lydia a thick folder.

Lydia’s curiosity took over and she plucked the folder from Stiles. “Let me see that.”

Stiles pilled out two more and held one out, “and here’s yours, Lake.”

Laken took it gingerly, “I feel dirty touching this. I’m not sure if I want to see it. Is that one yours?” She pointed to the other folder still in his hand.

“Yep.” Stiles tucked it under his arm. “And no you can’t see it.”

“Well, that’s not fair, Stiles, if all of us have to share then…”

“Wait,” Stiles shifted around Laken’s shoulder to lean over the desk next to Lydia. “That’s your drawing.”

Lydia frowned at the papers. “Why are these in my file?”

“Lydia, didn’t you draw that?”

“You’re good.” Danielle complimented her, but it fell on deaf ears.

“Me? I thought it was you?” Lydia shook her head, “I don’t doodle like you do.”

“It’s the same one,” Stiles whispered.

“Same what?”

“The same one I’ve seen you drawing in class.”

“It’s a tree. I like drawing trees. But I don’t doodle like this on my notes. Laken does.”

“No my pen lines are a lot thinner, you have a heavier hand. And who doesn’t doodle on their notes?”

“But I saw you drawing this in your notes.

“Bare trees? No. But that tree… it reminds me of the roots I’ve been doodling in the margins of my notes lately.” Laken pulled her backpack around and riffled through for her notebook. She set it on the table next to Lydia’s and flipped through the pages till she found one. “See.”

Laken had filled the margins with wispy doodles, and among the tiny flowers and vines crawling up and down her notes, where lush trees and upturned tree stumps with similar branch patterns to Lydia’s sketches.

“Give me your bag.” Stiles reached out for Lydia’s bag and she handed it to him, allowing him to unzip it and pull out her notebook, flipping through the pages till he found the same tree.

He put it on the table next to Laken’s notebook and the paper from Lydia’s file. The three matched up.

Laken squeezed her eyes shut and sank into Morrell’s chair while Stiles flipped through the pages in Lydia’s notebook, page after page of the same tree.

Danielle let out a low whistle and slowly backed out of the room. “Okay, you can have my session. You’ve got bigger issues.”

“Lake…”

“Yeah?”

“You said roots, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I know where they are.” Stiles shut the file and tucked it under his arm.

“Wait.” Laken held out her hand, stopping Stiles mid-step. “Leave the files.”

“But…,” Stiles sputtered.

“No. Leave them here. Put them back where they belong. Do you really want to get caught with those? And possibly be in more trouble?”

Lydia shrugged, “you should probably put those back.”

Laken held out hers to him and he reluctantly took it.

“Don’t you want to know…”

“No.”

Stiles whined a little, but Laken cast a hard look at him and he shuffled over to the filing cabinet and put Lydia and Laken’s files back.

“Yours too.”

“Come on, we don’t have time…”

“Put it back, Stilinski.” Laken tapped the face of her watch, “you’re wasting time.”

Stiles cursed under his breath and quickly shoved the files back in to the cabinet.  “Let’s go, let’s go!” Stiles ushered Laken out of the room.

Lydia hurried after them.

“It’s the Nematon.  That’s where she’s keeping them. It has to be…” Stiles rushed out, still pushing Laken by the shoulders infront of him.

“Stiles, maybe…” Laken started, trying to get Stiles to stop pushing her  forward.

“Stilinski!”

Stiles breathed out another curse and groaned, “what now?”

An FBI agent stood at the end of the hallway, flanked by two deputies.  Laken squinted at him trying to decide if he looked familiar.

Stiles pulled Laken back to stand next  to Lydia. “Get to Derek. He and Peter know where it is. They’ve been there. Tell them it’s the root cellar, they’ll know.”

Lydia nodded and started off down the hallway. Laken hesitated, watching the agent standing with his arms crossed.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Huh? No, it’s fine. Go with Lydia and stay together, please.”

“Okay.”

“Hurry.”

Laken sprinted down the hallway after Lydia, as she turned the corner the agent reached Stiles.

“Come on.” Lydia sighed, reaching for Laken’s hand when they met at the end of the hallway. “Are you ready to meet Peter?”

“Not particularly,” Laken muttered dryly.

~

Lydia swore it was just a quick trip home to drop off their bags. Barely inside the house, Lydia was intercepted by her dad.

“Are you okay? Who do I have to sue?” Michael was muttering. He placed his hands on either side of Lydia’s face and examined her bruised neck.

“Dad, I’m fine.”

“They’re lucky Whittmore left town or I’d sue the school for all it’s worth.”

Laken made a face and side-stepped them to get a quick bite from the kitchen, and an aspirin. She was adamant about not bringing her bag in, just in case.

Lydia and her dad’s conversation was a distant hum as Laken shoveled cold pasta into her mouth with one hand and tried to open the bottle of aspirin with the other.  She gave up and used both hands to get a capsule into her palm.

Michael cleared his throat in the archway of the kitchen. Laken didn’t start but turned slowly to face him while grabbing a cold bottle of water.

“I made a deposit in your savings account for college,” Michael said stiffly, “hopefully your mother will see that as compensation for unpaid child support.”

He held out a piece of plastic.

“Lydia has one of these, so it’s only fair you have one too. ”

“Uh, thanks.” Laken tucked the plastic card into her pocket.

Lydia’s head popped around the corner. “Dad, we have to go. We’re meeting some friends. It’s important we’re on time.”

“Oh, right. Okay. Be safe.” He said stiffly.

Laken hurried out of the room and toward the front door before he could stop them.

“Wait! Are you sure it’s a good idea to be going out? Isn’t there a –.” The door slammed shut behind Lydia cutting him off.

“Don’t say it,” Lydia grumbled once they were in the car.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You’re thinking it.”

“You said not to say it, nothing about thinking it.”

With a huff, Lydia put the car in reverse and pulled into the street.

 

 


End file.
